


Semi;Colon

by CapLaPorte



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Cybernetics, F/F, Tinker Taylor Hebert | Skitter | Weaver, Trans Female Character, Trans Taylor, Transhumanism, transgender cyberpunk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:33:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 31,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29171919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CapLaPorte/pseuds/CapLaPorte
Summary: Taylor, known in her cape persona as Semi;Colon, is a Tinker classified as a villain by the PRT and Protectorate. Her specialty? Trans. Both human, and gender. When she allows herself to be taken in after a few months of operation, she finds the PRT and Protectorate locking horns with each other in a political stalemate, with the Wards at the center.Trans Tinker Taylor fic.
Comments: 93
Kudos: 183





	1. hideout

**Author's Note:**

> The entire fic can be considered to have a general blanket warning about casual, if generally (intentionally) micro aggressive transphobia. If that is especially uncomfortable for you, exercise your own discretion. Outside of that, any chapters with especially uncomfortable content will be clearly labeled. All of that said, I do intend the fic to be overall more light hearted, even if it does look at some heavy issues. Anyway, enough rambling from me, enjoy!

;;;

A muffled _thump_ resounded through the warehouse basement. That took them longer than I expected _._ It was almost mid-afternoon, the PRT's scramble time left something to be desired. If only because I was _baking_ in the humid heat of my workshop, the midday sun seemed to be just a little too much for my junky AC unit to handle.

I sighed as the sound of muffled voices, jackbooted stomping, and crackling radios grew closer. Were there any last preparations to make? Casting my gaze around the room didn't bring anything up, though my power itched in that way it did when it clearly wanted me to be tinkering. Hopefully they'd still let me in captivity, but even if they didn't let me use my hands for a while, I had some internal components that could use some fiddling. That'd scratch the itch for a bit, at least.

The PRT strike team was getting closer, clearing the disused warehouse basement room by room. Idly, I realized I hadn't even been down the hallway they were entering through since moving in, let alone any of the rooms connected to it. I frowned and looked down, sensing something was- ah, yeah. I'd disassembled my hand again, oops. With a few practiced motions and a wince I rejoined the exposed nerve endings from my arm to their copper (copper alloy, custom made of course) counterparts in the main part of my hand, and reassembled the rest. Satisfied, I looked at it for a moment and- hold on. I let out a deep, weary, slightly exaggerated sigh, and did the mental equivalent of what I thought of as giving my power a dirty look. Then, I quickly got to work disassembling the very _natural_ looking sixth finger that had made its way onto my hand, and returned the rest of the extremity to human baseline.

While I certainly thought this body could use some improvements, it had been so long since I had worn it. For the moment, I was trying to enjoy the slight nostalgia of the admittedly hodgepodge build, regardless of my tinker brain's hangups on the matter.

A small vibration had me glance back up, the PRT was right outside of the final door now. I was quietly impressed with the team's professionalism, it wasn't any sound that had tipped me off (and my body's improved hearing made me very hard to sneak up on indeed), but rather the tremor sensors embedded in my feet… well, my sneakers, but they were quite literally part of this body, so effectively my feet. There was a certain amount of nervous anticipation in the body language of the PRT team, they'd stepped up to the door quietly enough, a significant and likely intentional difference from their earlier stomping, but now they were broadcasting their location all too loudly via slightly slid boots as they braced themselves for entry.

I mentally mapped out their positions, spinning in my desk chair and keeping my hands where I could keep track of them. (And away from my chin too, it was disconcerting to accidentally remove your lower jaw in the middle of a sentence, albeit mostly for those observing.) There was a clear space in the front middle of the little squadron, which probably meant explosives. Well, even if this body was older and disused, it could still take a healthy beating, not that I wanted it to come to that. I waited patiently for them to blow the door off of its hinges. They were probably expecting me to either be in one of my more dangerous bodies, or in my tinkering body (which also had its share of nasty surprises).

That played into why I'd chosen this body for our inevitable meeting. _And_ why I wanted to keep it looking _normal_. It was my least ostentatious, and least dangerous body I had. Hell, it was probably the proper body _legally_ too, I was pretty sure it had some of my original parts in it. I consulted my power, squinting. Ah, about 12% of it was still from the original T. Hebert, which was a bit more than I'd expected, honestly. Though of course that didn't account for the natural replacement of cells in biological components, which still occurred even within my tinkertech stasis fluid, if slightly slower, still I-

 _ **BANG**_

The PRT team _finally_ got its collective balls in order and blew the door off of my lab. I frowned as I watched the door fly across the room in slow motion. Fortunately, I'd thought ahead and set a mattress up in front of the support pillar facing the door. _Sloppy work_. My ears recorded the sound as it happened and analyzed it. _Not an explosive_ , that was kinetic force. Winding my vision back by about 300 milliseconds, I looked slightly closer at the rocketing door. Ah, a jutting outline of a fist. Probably a brute flier, judging by the lack of foot shuffling in the point position at the door a moment ago.

I was almost flattered that they'd sent a real cape after me. I quickly brought my eyes back to realtime, and relaxed the overclocked processor that had given me those few extra subjective moments to think, worriedly noting the increase in temperature. It was an older model, unfortunately. Something else to work on in custody, at any rate.

"Contact, dead center!"

Almost immediately after the cape, who I quickly identified as the Protectorate Ward Aegis, flew in, the rest of the PRT squad poured into the open (if unfortunately low ceilinged) space. Barely a second later, a muffled thump saw me encased in standard issue containment foam, all the way up to just below my eyes.

 _That_ I hadn't expected. In hindsight, _maybe_ I should've figured they'd shoot first and ask questions later. Too late now, I quickly isolated my body's cortisol production and pointedly shut that process of my adrenal gland right down for the moment. This was going to be interesting enough _without_ me having a panic attack _._ I reflected for a moment. No reason to give them any more leeway in force than they already have, I'd rather not test how many bullets this particular body can take. Well, there was still a chance of that happening, really, time to focus on the present.

The PRT enforcers, and Aegis, all stared at me for a moment, weapons and fists readied in my direction. I blinked at them, _languidly_ , and chuckled internally. That seemed to break the spell, and a moment later they were almost all fanning out through my workspace, gathering my notes and carefully placing equipment into large plastic containers copiously labelled with biohazard warnings. _That's actually a little offensive, what exactly do they think I have down here?_

Aegis waved off the pair of PRT goons that still had their weapons trained on me and walked up with his arms crossed over his chest. He was a bit of a… what's the word, beefcake _?_ The thought made me chuckle internally again, especially because even pre-upgrades I would have towered over the hero.

"Well Semicolon, you can't say we didn't give you plenty of chances to turn yourself in." He said after a moment appraising me.

I shrugged self-consciously, watching with disguised amusement as Aegis flinched at the way the containment foam flexed and stretched dangerously thin around my shoulders. I activated the speakers under my scalp, my jaw servos not quite having the strength to move the containment foam like my shoulders. "Chances to turn myself in, sure-" I paused a moment and reworked some internal wiring and software under the speakers. They were a little too tinny sounding for my tastes, another product of the body's age. I continued, satisfied as my voice came out much clearer. "-but never in a way where they wouldn't seriously restrict what I could do. Also, it's Semi;Colon."

Aegis winced at the slightly grating noise involved in saying my cape name properly, and squinted at me dubiously. "You realize being brought in like this, you'll be even more restricted than if you'd just… come in, or better, came to the Protectorate in the first place?"

I tried to frown, realized my mouth was still swamped in foam, and deigned to simply narrow my eyebrows instead. "Believe it or not Aegis, I did realize. Girls out here still needed my help though, and they still do. The PRT wouldn't have let me help them, not all of them." I let my expression relax a bit and glanced around, specifically alighting on the row of sheet covered tubes of stasis fluid that were only now being approached by the PRT team. "I got a little too ambitious though, realized pretty shortly after that you all would be coming, and got my affairs in order."

Aegis leaned in, studying what was visible of my face. "You've got a thinker ability in there too?"

I emoted a snort through my speakers that came out a little rougher and more electronic than I intended. "Could say that, I prefer to call it common sense and basic logic."

The Ward had the grace to chuckle at that, earning a distrustful look from a nearby PRT thug, which he carefully ignored. "Well, for what it's worth, I am sorry it came to this." He leaned back out and checked a wristband with a computer display on it. _Oh boy_. My power _really_ wanted to get one of those into my arm, ideally with a fold of artificial skin that could cover it up… or maybe going transparent would be better? I blinked and focused back in on Aegis as he continued. Thoughts for another time. "I-" He hesitated before leaning back in again, more confidentially, and carefully putting a hand over the wired earpiece that snaked into his costume. "-don't, uh, disagree with what you were doing. There are definitely people in the Protectorate, and _definitely_ the PRT, that do. Just-" He glanced around again, but the full PRT team was busy making rather loud exclamations of horror at my other bodies in the tubes. "-I want to let you know I'll be sticking up for you. I'm sorry it went this way."

Aegis leaned back out and took his hand off the earpiece, making a quick shushing gesture, and saving me the embarrassment of trying to respond to the awkward, if somewhat endearing, support. Instead, I just cocked an eyebrow at him, to which he responded with a small grin, before turning away and activating that same earpiece.

"Semicolon detained with no resistance, workshop secured without issue. We're gonna need a transport truck to carry the devices these constructs are being kept in." He put his hands on his hips and stared at the row of them, his back to me.

"Semi;Colon." I corrected absently, but neither of them were focused on talking. For some reason I found herself hoping that he at least wasn't as… disgusted by my bodies as the PRT troopers seemed to be. I was proud of them regardless, but it felt like only the occasional PHO poster ever actually _appreciated_ them. At minimum, he wasn't perturbed by them, if only because he'd fought me while I was in a few of them on more than one occasion. Unfortunately, that seemed like all I was going to get. Aegis turned back to me, face impassive and professional again.

"If I get you out of that, will you let me put restrainers on you?" He asked in a carefully polite tone.

I sighed inwardly. "I'm not going to resist, Aegis."

He gave a slight nod in response, then called over his shoulder. "Lieutenant Gabriel, bring the restraints and the dissolving agent."

One of the PRT blockheads froze for a moment, until a nudge from one of his pals got him walking, oddly stiffly. He marched to the empty doorframe they'd entered from, retrieved a few items, and made his way to Aegis, fixing the cape with a steely gaze all the while. "Sir." He said, and held out the items.

"Thank you, Lieutenant." Aegis said politely. I winced as the Lieutenants expression momentarily turned from 'steely' to ' _baleful_ ' as Aegis turned to face me again, before he marched off. Yikes. There was _definitely_ some history there.

"Friend of yours?" I vocalized quietly from my speakers, sure that only Aegis picked it up. He only responded with a quick glance and a smirk, which was more than enough for me as he set to work freeing me from the containment foam.

Well, hopefully the other Protectorate members were more like Aegis than the PRT. I _really_ didn't want to regret going down without a fight.


	2. interrogation

“SemiColon, independent villain cape, now captured by East-North-East Protectorate. Initial interview… June 8th, 2011, 3:15PM. Protectorate represented by Armsmaster, PRT represented by-”  
  
“-By Deputy Director Renick, thank you Armsmaster.”  
  
“…Of course. Interview subject was apprehended without resistance at her own laboratory after numerous altercations between herself and various members of the Brockton Bay PRT and Wards over the past four months. Details of criminal charges can be found in the subject’s file. Interview begins.”  
  
I raised an eyebrow at the two men on the other side of the table from me. Everything about their body language with relation to one another was so… so oddly comedic, and now we were just sitting here. In silence. Not talking, in case that wasn’t clear. I looked into Armsmaster’s visor, then slowly turned my head to look into ‘Deputy Director’ Renick’s eyes, then back to Armsmaster. These two really needed to get a room.  
  
“Y’know,” I remarked, smirking, “it’s usually up to the person who asked for the date to break the ice.” I was gratified by a clearly amused snort from one of the guards standing at the door before he was silenced by an absolutely killer stare from the Renick guy. Armsmaster didn’t react at all, but a moment later Renick did open his mouth.  
  
“Don’t sass us, young lady. You’re in a lot of trouble.” The guy was practically growling at me, it was almost cute.  
  
I shot him a winning smile. “Well then, Deputy Director, one of you ought to actually start interviewing me.”  
  
Armsmaster flinched and looked somewhat embarrassed, to his credit. “Right, first off. Semicolon-”  
  
“Semi;Colon,” I corrected. Renick winced at the sound.  
  
Armsmaster stared for a moment, then nodded. “Semi;Colon,” he said, which was seriously impressive for someone without the benefit of speakers to talk through, “our first order of business is to ask whether you have any family that should be made aware of your arrest.”  
  
Of course that was the first question. “Nope.”  
  
“That’s a lie.”  
  
Oh, so he had a lie detector in his visor, sick and not at all an invasion of privacy. Didn't they need to get me to sign a waiver for that or something? I liked Armsmaster more than the Renick guy, but that opinion was quickly dropping. I could just turn off my facial muscles, probably even run my voice through a monotone filter with a few moments of thought. But, eh, I wasn’t sure it was worth it to drop those advantages for this. “Fine, none I want to let know.”  
  
“Truth. You’re not living at home?” He asked, voice clipped.  
  
I smirked at him again, amused by the tension that grew in his bearded jaw when I did so. “No, the teenage body-modifying cyborg is not living at home.”  
  
The hero sighed. “Truth. Alright. We’ll-”  
  
“Are you willing to tell us your civilian identity?” Deputy Director Renick cut him off, and I froze as I processed the question. He wasn’t… no, they couldn’t, right?  
  
I stared at him for a moment, noting that Armsmaster had turned to look at him similarly sharply. “Are you-” I began, then paused for a second to think. “Are you asking me for it?” I finished carefully.  
  
“No, he is not.” Armsmaster said with steel in his voice, preempting the Deputy Director. My eyebrows raised involuntarily at the outright hostility in the armoured man’s tone. “Because neither we, nor the PRT are at all allowed to ask for that at the present moment. So no, he was not.”  
  
Renick met Armsmaster’s visored gaze with narrowed eyes for a beat, then two. Then he backed down, looking back at me. “I was simply asking if she was willing, Armsmaster, relax.”  
  
I wished for a bucket of popcorn as Armsmaster seemed to get even angrier at the dismissal. “That is not in the spirit of the policy.”  
  
Renick snorted. “By your reading, maybe.”  
  
“By the official reading.”  
  
“So you say.” Renick instantly responded with a smirk. I had a feeling a similar conversation had gone down several times in the past. Armsmaster just growled and sank back into his chair, looking at me almost sulkily. I shrugged at him. Hey, it wasn’t my fucking fault this dude was an asshole. “In any case,” the Deputy Director continued, pulling an index card from his pocket and looking it over, “is it true that you illegally used your parahuman ability to perform surgery on multiple unpowered victims?”  
  
Me and Armsmaster both gaped, _again,_ at the blatantly loaded question, actually meeting each other’s eyes, as far as I could tell, through his visor. Seriously? That was just… there was no way for me to safely answer that. After a moment, Armsmaster shut his mouth, fury plainly evident in his tensed jawline. “Deputy Director, a word outside please.”  
  
“Of course, Armsmaster.” Renick replied coolly before standing and following the taller man out.  
  
I nodded to their abandoned chairs as the door shut. “Very cool and normal, glad to see this place is functioning properly.” I, at least, was properly amused by the whole ordeal, to be sure. I heard another muffled snort from behind me though as I finished my muttering. I glanced back at the trooper and his buddy, who were both clearly suppressing grins, and offered a short smile of my own. “Hey guys? Don’t freak out, okay? I’m gonna open my arm to drop some paperwork on the table, promise it’s nothing bad.”  
  
They both froze like deer in headlights and looked at each other, slowly raising their containment foam sprayers. I heaved a sigh. “Seriously, they’re bitching at me about the surgery stuff, I have informed consent forms, I brought them because I knew they were gonna nitpick about that kinda thing. If I was going to try to break out, it certainly wouldn’t be while I’m chained to a chair six levels underground.”  
  
The troopers stared at me, and I met their gazes as evenly as possible. Finally, the one on the right of the door took the initiative and nodded. “No funny business though.” He added.  
  
I shook my head. “Me? Funny? Of course not.” I watched him suppress the smile I knew that was going to draw out of him. These two weren’t so bad at least. Anyway, I maneuvered my forearm so it was over the table, surreptitiously letting my wrist elongate a bit so I could actually reach it (fortunately, my two guards didn’t seem to notice). Then, with a slight mental nudge, the lower half of the arm opened up, letting a sheaf of papers slide down. My guards twitched at the light thump as the stack of documents unrolled and hit the table, but managed to restrain their clearly itchy trigger fingers. I shot them another grin. “Thanks boys.”  
  
My arm closed and I leaned back in my seat. Well, as much as you could lean back in a chair bolted to the ground, anyway. It didn’t take a thinker to realize there was tension between the Protectorate and the PRT, I’d noticed it myself on the streets. Didn’t figure it reached all the way up in the chain of command like this though. Hopefully it wouldn't impact me too much, besides some awkward interviews, obviously, but this was funny enough that I could handle one or two more. I’d allowed myself to be captured hoping I’d get picked up by the Protectorate support tinker unit, or maybe even better, transferred to the Guild. I’d much rather work for Dragon than the Triumvirate. Even if I have to serve a stint in jail first, it’d be worth it to keep tinkering and helping girls. Which I _would_ continue to do, whether they liked it or not.  
  
Finally, the door clicked as its lock mechanisms disengaged, and Armsmaster reentered alone, circling back around to his side of the table. “The Deputy Director has had another responsibility come up,” he pronounced with a forced kind of evenness, “I will be finishing Semi;Colon’s initial interview without him.” It took me a moment to realize he was talking as much to the pair of guards as to me and the camera. Would they have removed him if he didn’t mention that? Could they have? I guess that was part of the power struggle. Armsmaster met my eyes. “I apologize for the… interruption, Semi;Colon.”  
  
The Protectorate tinker’s jaw was still set, but it didn’t look like he was actively grinding his teeth together anymore, which was probably an improvement. I nodded, “It’s all good, I’m not going anywhere,” and gave my wrist shackle a little jangle.  
  
Armsmaster returned a single, firm nod, but didn’t even look like he had thought about cracking a smile. This guy was a tough crowd. He paused for a moment as the documents I’d left on the table caught his eye. “What are these for?” He asked cautiously. I could hear the electronics in his visor switching through various scanning modes.  
  
“Informed consent forms.” I answered, smirking. “For my patients.”  
  
Apparently satisfied that they weren’t… I dunno, radioactive or hiding a bomb trigger, he picked them up and started shuffling through. “You understand that as an unlicensed practitioner these are practically meaningless? And- Hm. They’re not even signed with real names.”  
  
Bleh, I mean I knew he was going to notice, but I was still sorta hoping he wouldn’t. “Well I’m not going to out my patients, certainly not to the PRT.”  
  
“I see. I-” He broke off into a sigh and slumped a bit, tossing the papers down. His head was moving ever so slightly from left to right, over and over again, sort of like he was reading something. Well, I realized he probably was, possibly even typing something with eye-tracking. If I could just tinker with her for a bit I could insert a neural link at the base of her neck that would let her interface with her suit directly, that would eliminate her tell that she was paying attention to it instead of the situation, and since I was by the neck anyway, I could give her a new voice while I was-  
  
I choked on nothing as I realized what my power had done. Fuuuck me. I’d been doing so well at not outing others to myself. Armsmaster? Really? I looked them up and down, resolving to use a neutral pronoun for internal identification purposes for the moment so my power wouldn’t completely freak out at me. Were they closeted then? Or did they not even know? I opened up a new patient record on my internal drive and tentatively marked down basic information as well as ‘in denial’ as I took a closer look at their beard.  
  
“Semi;Colon!” Armsmaster’s voice cut through my fugue.  
  
“Huh? What? Ya?”  
  
“I _said_ , unless you have anything to add about your criminal activities, this interview will be finished early after I gather some basic information about your power.”  
  
I blinked. Anything to add? I can’t see why I’d contribute even further to the book they no doubt could very well throw at me. I shrugged and gave them a pointed look, ignoring their first query. “Alright, shoot.”  
  
“If you’re sure then. First, most Tinkers are adversely affected by being forced not to tinker for long periods of time. Do you experience this?”  
  
I nodded. “Yeah, since I carry something to tinker with with me at all times though,” I indicated my whole body, “eventually I just start to disassemble and change around parts without really consciously realizing. Let me tell you, _that_ freaks people right out.”  
  
They leaned in, clearly they found the subject interesting, but caught themselves and read something else on their visor. “Right, are you capable of forming a weapon out of the materials present on or within your body?”  
  
Hmph, complicated answer to that one. “Not consciously, no.”  
  
Armsmaster frowned. “Explain.”  
  
“When I start to tinker with a body that is… already to the satisfaction of its owner without a specific goal, the things I create can be… unpredictable.”  
  
“In what sense?”  
  
I swallowed the lump of nervousness that was sticking to my throat. This was fine, I knew what I was getting into. This aspect of my tinkering only made me… slightly more dangerous than most tinkers. “I have, in the past, created attachments or upgrades or extra body parts that should, by all appearances, be completely outside of my tinkering specialization, as well as impossible to create with the materials provided.”  
  
They frowned. “I… see. Well, blackbox technology is not as uncommon as you might think.”  
  
“No,” I said, shaking my head, “it’s more like… I’ll sit down intending to just take the edge off by tinkering with one of my bodies, and come out of it with, for instance, a reliable, long range portal generator, without consciously noticing.”  
  
Armsmaster did that side to side eye-typing gesture again, the tic was honestly a little endearing. Like a big puppy cocking its head occasionally. "And… do you have that with you now?"  
  
Their face stayed impassive as I cleared my throat. Or, y’know, made a throat clearing sound. "What, the portal generator? I never really needed it, would've been more trouble than it was worth, so I just scrapped it for parts. Still no idea where half of the shit inside of it even came from." My tremor sensors picked up two sets of heavy footfalls coming down the hallway, moving past the room I was in, flanked ahead and behind by another two sets, though less weighed down than the middle pair. Some PRT goons bringing in another prisoner? I blinked and shook my head, not my business. "Anyway," I said, looking back to Beardmaster, "the point is, the longer I go without affirmative, meaningful tinker work on people who need it, the more chances that I'll make something that neither of us want around here."  
  
The mask made it hard to tell, but their face seemed to twitch a bit at my mention of 'people who need it.' Repressed gender feelings? Or actually totally justifiable worry at prospect of how neatly my work straddles the line between tinker and biotinker? Well, the jury on that went out for lunch and got hit by a bus, so I'll let you draw your own conclusions.  
  
“I cannot guarantee that we will be able to supply you with…” they visibly struggled, one of the first outward signs of emotion I’d seen Armsmaster show all night, “… subjects.” The feeling of the room became oddly tense, I could hear the guards behind me, who’d found my joking so funny, tighten their grips on their guns. Now for _my_ part, I know I make a big deal about helping girls out, it’s the primary focus of my power and everything that implies. But the way they were acting on revealing to me that they wouldn’t be abducting closeted trans-girls off the street for me to offer gender affirmation surgery (plus extras) to made it seem like they expected me to be _violent_ about it. Which was hilarious, the PRT _and_ the Protectorate keeping their filthy paws out of the trans community, what little of it and how underground it was, in Brockton Bay was A-Fucking-Okay by me.   
  
Everything about the way they were treating me was so back and forth. Armsmaster went from standing up for me against that Redneck Deputy Director guy, to fascinated by my power, to worried I was going to, I dunno, self-destruct in the literal explosive sense or something. For all that they were seeing parts of who I was, for all that I _was_ being personable and _working_ at it to be likable and funny, they were still seeing some ‘otherness’ in me. Which, fair is fair, I _am_ more machine than woman, but still. It was starting to rub me wrong.  
  
Maybe they just needed some time to get to know me, have a few heart to hearts, bond over a few cans of beer, the works. _Pfffffffffffffffft._  
  
“Yeah, I, uh, figured. That’s fine.” The tension in the room relaxed a fraction. “Now I don’t wanna put the Cage before the Transport, but it’d be nice if I could fiddle with one of my other bodies at some point, that’d probably help me more than just tinkering with the one I’m in.”  
  
Armsmaster nodded once. “Pending my own investigation of the capabilities of your other bodies, we shall see.” That was probably the best I’d be getting, worth a shot at least. “Moving on, do you require sleep in your current form?”  
  
“Not as such, but I do need to plug into a wall and kinda shut down for a few hours each day. It’s _kinda_ like sleep I guess, just lets my brain’s computery bits process the day’s data.”  
  
“Very well.” Armsmaster said. “Further testing of your powers will be conducted in-depth by me or another tinker at a later date.” That’d be fun, a whole day with tall, dark, and bearded here. “In the mean time, you will be confined in one of our holding cells, pending the leadership’s decision on your future. Do you have any questions?”  
  
You could say that, the whole interview and the frostiness from the Deputy Director guy had me worried, quite frankly. I knew that there was some level of public pressure to ‘deal’ with me, mostly from some of the families of the girls I’d helped, and to a lesser extent the rest of the shitty bigots in the community. Even that fucking medical corporation had put out a statement condemning my ‘unlicensed medical practice’! As if Medhall did jack shit for trans people. What worried me was whether that pressure would result in me just getting unceremoniously dumped in the Birdcage, I’m too beautiful to go to permanent superprison inside the most heavily fortified mountain in the world! I wasn’t sure what the political situation that was clearly happening between the PRT and Protectorate entailed, but if it came down to it, I’d rather have endeared myself to the Protectorate early like this and garnered some fellow parahuman sympathy.  
  
All of that justification just so I could bring myself to say one word to Armsmaster. “No questions, Armsmaster.”  
  
“Very well, these men will esc-”  
  
“Hebert.” I interrupted them.  
  
“Pardon?” Armsmaster tensed, immediately doing that eye-typing thing.  
  
“My last name is Hebert. If you look that up, you should find me.”  
  
“I-” It was almost incredible how Armsmaster went from looking like… well, Armsmaster, to suddenly looking completely out of their depth. They swallowed. “I see, thank you, Semi;Colon. That may make your case less complicated.”  
  
With a final pause and a look at me that lasted just a second too long, Armsmaster turned about face and stalked back out into the hallway.   
  
I smirked over my shoulder at the PRT guards. “Well boys? Clock’s ticking.”


	3. cell

“… so then I looked down at my suit, look back up to him, and said to him, ‘Hey, the meal’s free, but you gotta pay for the dry cleaning!’”

I burst out laughing, I couldn’t help it! Clockblocker was completely incorrigible when it came to humour at inopportune moments. Mind you, it wasn’t exactly the moment that was inopportune this time around, just the locale. Me and Clock were… chilling. Yeah, just chilling. Just me, him, and this laser forcefield that smelt like burning plastic that the PRT had put between us.

The rest of my cell wasn't much to look at either, though amusingly, they had actually fed a power bar connected to an extension cord through a small hole in the forcefield for me. I had asked for it, but seeing such a… basic setup next to a tinkertech forcefield was pretty funny. As for Clockblocker, me and him always got along.

I liked to banter during life or death situations, he liked to banter during life or death situations, and fortunately we both managed to consistently end up opposing each other in life or death situations! Not that I would've actually killed anyone while, I dunno, raiding a home depot, but I sure wouldn't wanna be the heroes that got in my way either.

Which made Clock unusual, cause he sure seemed to relish getting clobbered by my various bodies, as long as we could exchange barbs while I did it.

As our laughter died down, he tilted his head, lazily looking over at me from atop his pair of side by side boxes serving as a makeshift seat. "What's on your mind, tin girl?"

I snorted, anyone else, even Vista, young as she is, I would’ve told off for a joke like that. Clock just hit different, and I don’t only mean the time freezing. My left ear was giving me some trouble as I tinkered with the false eardrum, so I focused on that as I drawled, “I dunno, just thinkin’ about how it’s funny we get along this well. Hell, always got along this well.”

His mask covered his full face, but I heard the smirk in his voice as he said, “Awh, getting sentimental on me there Semi? Gonna cry?”

“After all,” I continued as though he hadn’t spoken, “when you’re so emotionally stunted that you only know how to respond to seriousness with humour, how many people must actually like being around you?”

He gave a full body wince. “Ewch, deserved that, my bad.”

“S’fine.” My muscles whirred as I shrugged. “I am feeling a little sentimental I guess. I know it’s not, but it kinda feels like the ride’s over for me, y’know?”

“Doesn’t feel good having others decide your future?”

“Yeah,” I said, and reattached my ear, “you might have noticed, but self-determination is one of my things.”

He nodded sagely, and sat up into a less lazy looking position on the boxes. “It was always pretty clear we were on the same wavelength, I think I noticed before you did though.” I nodded as he continued. “Most of the villains in the city seem pretty, uh, impressed with themselves. They’ve got bloated egos. Plenty of heroes do too, for sure, but at least there’s guys like yours truly around here to keep everyone down to Earth.”

I snorted. “Might be the only context anyone would agree you’re ‘down to Earth’ in.”

Still wearing his helmet, I intuited he must be glaring at me. “Eat my ass.”

“Sorry, don’t swing that way.” I responded glibly, earning a sigh from the exchange we’d repeated a dozen or so times in the field.

“But yeah, some of the big names aren’t so bad like Miss Militia or Mouse Protector, but seriously, half the time it’s just mind boggling how seriously everyone takes dressing up in spandex and punching each other.”

I frowned. “It is life or death a lot of the time.” I paused. “Or life or sexual exploitation in the case of Lung’s gang.”

Clock held his hands up defensively. “Oh yeah, I’m not saying it’s not important or not dangerous or anything, it just…” He sputtered for a second. “It might be the cross section of the dumbest looking people doing the most important and dangerous things.”

“Heh, yeah, I can see that I guess.” I chuckled. What I’d thought about when Aegis was arresting me came to mind, and I gave a sideways glance at Clockblocker. He had always been supportive, as much as he could be. Frankly, having a long conversation with him now was putting me more and more at ease with the Protectorate in general after that disastrous entry interview. “Say, Clock.”

“Hm?”

“What do you think of my bodies?” The light in my cell flickered a bit as Clockblocker stopped moving thoughtfully.

To his credit, he didn’t respond with a joke. “I guess mostly I found them intimidating.”

“Intimidating?” Despite the not wholly negative answer, I couldn’t help the disappointment in my voice.

"Well in the moment fuck yeah, do you have any idea what you're like to fight against?"

"Uh." I blinked, manually since I normally kept my blinking turned off. "I've never really thought about it, I guess."

He gaped. "You have no idea? Semi, you're fucking terrifying!"

I cocked my head at him. "How so?"

A full body shudder later, and he started to passionately ramble. "Well for one, you've got like a dozen bodies, and each and every one has a totally different bodyplan! That's a dozen different strategies for us to plan around for a single villain! Already a lot of work, but no, it gets better. You're constantly fucking with them, upgrades, new redundancies to weaknesses we figured out, randomly changing features cause you got bored of them, it was like fighting Aegis on steroids!"

"Huh," I considered it. "I guess that all makes sense."

Clock nodded vehemently. "But you know? For me, that's not even the worst part." I cocked an eyebrow at him. "I remember the first time I ever tagged you with my power. I got that one body of yours, the sleek one that runs on four legs sometimes? I managed to nab you as you jumped past me and we all went 'Phew, a moment to think and prepare and catch our breath.' And then, not ten seconds later, your fucking snake bottom body burst out of the sewers and started attacking us! You almost completely outmode my power because your bodies are remotely controlled!"

I burst into giggles as Clock crossed his arms petulantly. "Yeah, that was fucking hilarious, you should've seen your faces." Suddenly, one of the most brilliant ideas I've ever had came to me. "Holy shit, Clock, now that I'm here, wanna see your faces?" I didn't even give him a chance to respond before I had unarchived my video memory of that day and picked out a particularly good still of their panicked expressions. With a vrrrr I turned on the projectors in my eyebrows and presented the image in all its glory.

Clockblocker stared for a moment, open mouthed, and then burst into laughter himself. "Ho-Holy shit you've gotta send that to me," he said between breaths, "Aegis' face might be my new phone background."

I grinned. "It was mine for a while, and I will as soon as they let me into the wi-fi."

He calmed himself slightly, still occasionally giggling. "You can't just hack in? And quit it with the R2-D2 impression before the guards freak."

I obliged with a snort, leaving the bare grey wall free of Aegis' absurd facial expression. "I could hack in, but I'm being courteous."

Clock's expression finally sobered, and he leaned out from the alcove that housed my cell, glancing up and down the holding cell hallway. A moment he leaned back in and looked back at me. "That's… probably for the best. I don't know if you've noticed, but things are sorta tense right now."

"Notice?" I rolled my eyes at him. "The Protectorate and the PRT have been at each other's throats for months now."

"Heh, it's been that obvious?"

I nodded. "Even if it hadn't looked like they were going to come to blows at every crime scene, you wouldn't believe the interview I had yesterday with Renick and Armsmaster."

"Oh God," Clock groaned as he hunched over and covered his faceplate with both hands, "the secondhand embarrassment I'm getting from even considering that scenario is hurting."

"I guess it's like you said," I mused, "the dumbest looking, most self-important people doing the most important and dangerous things."

"Finally, a worthy slogan for the Protectorate," he laughed, but sobered up again all too quickly seconds later. "Yeah…" he sighed, "it's actually been kinda shitty for us Wards."

"Oh?"

Clock nodded morosely, slumping back against the wall. "We're in a weird place in the chain of command. The way it was explained to me is that we're technically under the Director of the local PRT's authority, but the Protectorate by design has a large amount of influence over the Wards too, supposed to be our mentors and all, and we're generally supposed to listen to them too."

This was… particularly discomfiting to hear. "So, what, they've been fighting over who gets to be in charge of the child soldier program?"

That made him shift uncomfortably, but I thought I heard him suppress a snort. "Ah, yeah, basically." He was silent for a second. "It's been especially hard on Mi- Uh, Vista. She doesn't like that sorta thing."

I gave a sympathetic nod like I knew I should. I'd never spoken or quipped much with Vista, of all the Wards her power was probably the worst for me to deal with, and I’d had plenty of opportunities to try, but she'd always come off as a little withdrawn to me. So I mostly let her be, not gonna force my banter on an uninterested younger teen who’s already being forced to brutally fistfight criminals, after all. Her quietness always seemed unfitting with her bright green costume, she must not have always been that way. "Well I hope it doesn't last. That sucks pretty hard." I finally said.

Clock nodded once and muttered, "thanks," before we slipped into a comfortable silence. The clearer the picture of this power struggle between the PRT and the Protectorate became, the less and less interested I was in sticking around in Brockton Bay. Hopefully if I was going to a prison first all of this would be over by the time I was out. Or even more ideally, I'd just be sent to go work for the Guild. Canada has a good track record on trans rights, doesn't it? I'd never really checked, maybe the Guild would even let me do my thing for girls there.

Either way, it was becoming clearer and clearer that this power struggle in Brockton Bay was a ticking time bomb. And with the gangs more feisty than ever, I didn't relish the thought of what would happen when it went off.

Clock shifted nervously, and looked away from my cell as he started to speak. "Y'know, I've been meaning to ask, does your power-"

Whatever he'd been about to ask about my power- which I was now intensely curious about because of his uncharacteristically nervous body language- was cut off by him snapping his mouth shut as the main blast door that lead to the holding cells opened, revealing six heavily armoured PRT goons. Clockblocker stood, rather purposefully, in front of my cell as they stomped down the hallway towards me.

"'Sup guys, need anything?" Clockblocker drawled easily as the whole group of them slowed to a halt in front of him. To his credit, he wasn't intimidated by their glares and clearly hostile body language at all. Or he didn't show it, at any rate.

"We're moving the villain to a meeting room." The lead goon said, practically growling at Clockblocker. Christ, where were the two chill dudes who'd been in my interview room yesterday? Ah well, this must mean they've decided what my options are, assuming I'll even get a choice of some kind.

Clock nodded slowly, then languidly slinked to the side, making sure to stay in the way as long as possible. I had to suppress another laugh, the way he was riling them up made it pretty clear what he thought of the PRT in general. "Alright, enjoy, Semi."

I snorted. "Thanks Clock, talk to ya later." A second later the forcefield deactivated with a slight burst of air, and I was in cuffs facedown on the floor. "Uh, fucking ow? You could've just asked me to hold my hands behind my back?"

"Shut it, no speaking till we're in the meeting room." Lead guy growled. I shrugged and nodded, a little less amused at Clockblocker riling them up before they got to me now. Ah well, it was what it was. It was time to see what the future would hold for me.


	4. office

The Brockton Bay PRT Director’s office felt like a peculiar brand of corporate. On the one hand, it had a whole floor to itself, which did figure into the kind of self-important behavior one associates with CEOs and the like. The only rooms besides the reception, washrooms, and a slightly larger meeting room on the floor were the two rooms that made up a security checkpoint. Of course, I hadn’t gotten to wait in the standard reception, no, I was cuffed and kept facing a wall in the checkpoint. But when I _was_ brought into the office, I saw the other hand.  
  
The Director’s office itself was clearly as much designed for the comfort of the Director as it was for intimidating or wowing those that entered it. Massive windows, no doubt with hidden steel shutters, backlit the Director’s silhouette from behind the enormous wooden desk that dominated much of the room. Under my feet, cool black tile gave way to an ornate area rug, somehow unstained despite the constant visitors the Director must get. A pair of large TVs on one wall served no doubt a more practical purpose, and a bank of six computer monitors mounted to the wall closer to the window in front of a smaller desk supplemented the three already present to the side of the large central wooden one.  
  
The combination of splendor and functionality pointed towards the reality that the Director of the BBPRT was as much a politically and legally important position, as it was a corporate one, even if it _was_ technically a government agency.  
  
All of that to say that when I was finally dragged into the office and plopped in a chair before the Director of the Brockton Bay PRT, I was, despite the splendor of the location, less than impressed. In my defense, he didn’t start off in the most endearing way.  
  
“Tyler Hebert, also known as-”  
  
“ _Fuck you_.” I growled, making him pause in clearly overstated shock.  
  
He pushed his glasses back up his nose as he made a show of looking down and shuffling some papers around. He was a middle aged black man, possibly in his early to mid 40s, muscular in a way that somehow managed to seem scrawny at the same time, giving him a weirdly lopsided appearance over his desk. His shoulders filled out his suit in a way that his narrower neck and head couldn't match up to. “Ah, yes, that’s right isn’t it. You prefer _Taylor_.” He’d obviously known and was trying to get a rise out of me, for some reason. I _had_ socially transitioned before I’d gotten my powers. Well, for a certain measure of ‘social,’ but the point stands. My medical records at least would have shown that.  
  
I closed my eyes and took a couple deep breaths, then opened them. If he wanted to get me _really_ angry, he’d need to try harder than that. “Yes, Taylor _is_ my name.”  
  
The Director smiled, an oily thing, despite his appearance that erred further on the side of rugged than slimy. “Quite. And mine is Director Thomas Calvert.”  
  
The acoustics of the office lended themselves to his voice, making it feel as though he was speaking from all around you. A deep baritone that would have come across as reassuring, or at least confident, if not for the clipped and precise tone he spoke in. Frankly, it made him come across as almost unbearably arrogant. I had no idea how he commanded the respect of the PRT like that.  
  
I took another breath, no reason to let him keep the conversational momentum, even if it was implicitly mostly his. “Well,” I drawled, “good to finally meet you.”  
  
But he was savvy to my game, as expected, and barreled on regardless, fixing me with a narrow stare. “ _Miss_ Hebert, I won’t lie to you, you’ve caused us quite a bit of trouble. Even outside of your unlicensed medical procedures and all too frequent robberies, usually accompanied by your resisting arrest.” I sighed and nodded as he listed off my ‘crimes.’ “Further, while some believe there is room for nuance regarding whether your power can be classified as bio-tinkering or not, I am one for caution, having experienced the horrors a biotinker is capable of personally.” His last, and most egregious, insult was delivered with only a dispassionate grimace. It was by far the most threatening thing anyone had said to me so far, though. The implications were obvious. _I want you in the Birdcage._  
  
I carefully, mechanically, fixed my facial features into a neutral expression, not betraying the building anger in me at his words.  
  
“ _However_ ,” he lingered on the word for a moment, “You are a minor. An _underprivileged_ minor, at that. I cannot simply send you to one of the many high security Parahuman jails, nor can I afford the media circus involved if you were to suddenly disappear from the public eye. You’ve become something of a minor celebrity in certain circles outside of Brockton Bay.” I gave a small nod, more to myself than him. My ‘popularity,’ as it were, was quite different compared to most capes. In Brockton Bay, where the transphobic, homophobic (and obviously though less applicably, racist,) Empire 88 held a fair amount of cultural sway, alongside the incredibly chauvinistic Azn Bad Boys, the public discourse was largely neutral or outright negative around me. There were exceptions, but they tended to prove the rule, being largely LGBTQ+ focused blogs or news sites. Around the rest of the country was a different story, far from the influence of the E88 and ABB, America was waxing towards the liberal, politically, and my cape name had even come up in a recent Supreme Court hearing around workplace protections for transgender people (in a negative context, admittedly, but it was surreal nonetheless.) I was a far cry from the celebrity of the Triumvirate or Guild, but between my online presence and status as one of the few ‘out’ transgender Capes, it wouldn’t be wrong to say my image held some level of clout. Ignorant of my wandering thoughts, Calvert continued. “So this leaves me with few options palatable to me, and then even less once the review board gave my preferences a once-over.”  
  
I stared at him, mildly annoyed at the interruption to my reflection, and dearly wished he’d just get to the point. A new voice from behind me broke in, making me jump. “The Protectorate also receives a say in what happens after Parahuman arrests.” I turned back slightly, and saw the familiar profile of a tall levantine woman in military fatigues, with a red, white, and blue bandanna covering her lower face. Miss Militia! I tried to get over my giddy fangirling to decipher the message implicit in what she had said. The Protectorate had stood up against what Calvert had wanted for me. Whatever he had decided was the best they could get me.  
  
For his part, Calvert’s face had taken on an ugly sheen. Not so different from his more neutral expression that it could be called out, but more in the territory of a sneer than it had been. “ _Quite._ ” He bit out. “So in light of the… recommendations from all of the _various_ sources that get a say, I am here to present you with two options.”  
  
Ooh, so I _did_ get to choose. I would bet almost anything one of these options would be completely unpalatable, while the other would be whatever the Director here thought he could live with. I lazily stretched my legs out in front of me and leaned back in the chair (thankfully not bolted to the ground this time.) “Alright, shoot.”  
  
“You can spend two years in a low-security Parahuman prison, where you will take part in a PRT designed rehabilitation course. After this you would be released with a PRT parole officer, and provided both a private residence and a job working on prosthetics, and other potential uses of your power for the Medhall Corporation. They have shown significant interest in more… mundane applications of your tinkering ability.” I blinked, parsing both the contents of the offer, and the way it had been delivered. Medhall Corporation? All I knew about them was that they were a locally based Big Pharma company, and that they had specifically released that statement condemning me a while back. They were interested in me? How did they even know I was arrested? Plus… I looked closer at Calvert without actually changing how I was seated. His tone had been neutral, _carefully_ neutral. He didn’t want to betray it, but this was the option he must have wanted me to take. Two years in prison, and then I would be both tied to a place of living, PRT supervision, and a job. Presumably, if I was dissatisfied with any of those, or more specifically, _they_ were dissatisfied with how I _acted_ with regards to any of those, it would be right back to prison. “This would provide you with stable income, and growing freedom pending your good behaviour. I know the people at Medhall, and they’re all quite eager to meet you.” He gave me another one of those oily smiles, this one must have been intended to be reassuring, or something. I shivered.  
  
“Or.” His expression turned into a weary kind of resignation, and he let out an explosive sigh with a quick, accusing glance towards Miss Militia before continuing. “You can, _on probation_ , join the Brockton Bay Wards. You will be rebranded, and given a private room onsite in the Ward’s dormitory. Initially your privileges would be few while your potential punishments for acting out much greater than most Wards. Your tinkering would be restricted pending review by Armsmaster, and you will have to seek approval for any… _changes_ to your body you wish to make. Your first month of service you would be focused on console duty and legal education, as well as use of force training, both to prepare your Ward persona, and to ensure that you understand the myriad of responsibilities of your new role. You would be directly under _my_ supervision-” Miss Militia cleared her throat from behind me, and Calvert grimaced. “-with several members of the East-North-East Protectorate acting as mentors and… incident supervisors.” Wow, he sounded a _lot_ less enthused about this idea than the Medhall option. On the one hand, as far as I knew, Tinkers were considered incredibly valuable in Parahuman circles. But on the other, I _was_ basically a media shitstorm in a cybernetic girl’s body.  
  
It was clear which one he wanted me to take. Really, I think he even _expected_ me to take the Medhall option, but the decision was really no decision at all. I wasn’t interested in selling my technology or services to some shitty Pharmacorp, and the duties involved in being a Ward _were_ ultimately things I had eventually intended to get around to doing anyway, once new patients had stopped filtering in. It would be a drastic change to my lifestyle, but I'd manage. I always had. Once I was a legal adult, maybe I'd be able to go independent, get an independent tinker license and get it _thoroughly_ confirmed that I wasn't a biotinker. But adulthood felt so far away... well, not that I had a choice, really. “In that case,” I started, carefully modulating my tone, “I would much rather work with the Wards.”  
  
Calvert blinked, seemingly thrown off. Or- hold on. I overclocked my processors again, activating and keeping a bit of attention on my heat monitor too, just in case, and replayed the second long facial tic. Something about it felt… off. Artificial, almost. He blinked just a _bit_ too soon after I had finished speaking, it wasn’t quantifiable by any means, but it felt rehearsed. Like he had blinked in surprise before he could have finished processing my decision, despite it not being the one he wanted. _Was_ it not the one he wanted me to take? Or was I just being paranoid? For once, I wasn’t willing to just put this kind of thing aside. I’d gotten better at going with the flow and not jumping at every slight social weirdness, but Calvert rubbed me the wrong way in the first place, and this only added to that. The jury was still out, but I couldn’t shake the feeling I might have just been played.  
  
Well Hell, even if I was, it was still no choice between the Wards and Medhall. I returned my processor to normal speed, and Calvert cleared his throat, still looking somewhat perturbed. “Very well then, are you sure of your decision, Taylor?”  
  
I nodded slowly. “I know the Wards well enough, I get along with most of ‘em. I’d rather that than a Pharma company who’s only interaction with me prior to this was releasing a negative statement about my work.”  
  
The Director raised an eyebrow. “You get along with them?”  
  
I shrugged and said, “Mostly, yeah,” and didn’t bother to elaborate further.  
  
Silence reigned for a few moments as me and Calvert stared each other down. What was this guy’s deal, anyway? I’d known him, _vaguely_ , by reputation, but it was always Renick that did press events and releases. I wondered if his particular brand of arrogance permeated even his public speaking. Mister Thomas Calvert really did have a just a distinctly _unlikeable_ quality to him. Finally, Miss Militia broke the silence. “If that’s all, Director, I’ll take SemiColon down to the Wards dormitory. I believe Armsmaster already prepared her room in case of this outcome.”  
  
Calvert nodded sharply, once. “That will be all then.” I stood up, and felt Miss Militia unlock my handcuffs. As we turned to leave, Calvert couldn’t resist getting one last dig in. “And SemiColon?” I looked back over my shoulder, where he fixed me with a calculating gaze. “Don’t let me see you in here again too soon, hm?”  
  
Not quite sure how to respond to his School Principal impression, I just stuck my tongue out at him as I passed through the door after Miss Militia.


	5. dorms

“Sooooo…” I started as the elevator from the Director’s floor began making its way down the building. “It’s really cool to finally meet you!” Did I have a bit of a giddy smile on my face? Maybe. Listen, this was catharsis after the very stressful and nerve-wracking decision I’d just made. That’s all.   
  
Miss Militia, to her credit, seemed to take it fairly well, just raising her eyebrows skeptically. “Is it?”  
  
I was practically vibrating in place, nodding rapidly. “Yeah! Honestly, I had a poster of you in my bedroom like, _forever_. I used to follow everything that was written about you in the newspaper! Before it all, y’know, went online. I wasn’t really able to follow after that.”  
  
I got momentarily distracted by the elevator ride, damn, we were moving down floors _quick._ The ride was smooth as butter too, I couldn’t actually feel… anything, it was like we were sitting still. I mentally filed that away, Tinkertech elevator, very cool.  
  
My latest outburst did seem to actually get a reaction out of Miss Militia, she looked slightly more plussed than she had moments ago. “Well, I’m glad I could inspire you.” She gave me a bit more of a _tired_ look. “I just wish you’d taken the ‘law-abiding’ part a bit more to heart.”  
  
I froze, and despite myself I felt my expression drop. Obviously she wouldn’t _get_ it. I hadn’t even expected her to, but being faced with the reality stung all the same. We were nearing the basement level that she’d said the Wards were on, so I figured I’d take this last opportunity to say my piece alone. I turned to face her directly, idly noting her power’s representation flicker from a knife into a taser as she rested her hand on it. “I have a calling,” I stated simply, “one more important to me than any country's law, or interpretation of my rights.”   
  
For a moment, we stared each other down. Lots of staring today, at all kinds of people, I noted. Then, Miss Militia pursed her lips and sighed through her nose, making a quiet humming sound. “We’re almost there.” She finally said, turning back to the elevator door.  
  
I acknowledged her with a nod, leaving the thread of conversation loose for another time. I hoped I’d given her pause enough to make her think, I _liked_ Miss Militia, but she was a bit of a… cop. Ah well, nothing my truly malignant influence couldn’t change.  
  
With a _ping_ , the elevator came to a halt, and the doors slid silently open. What looked like the common room of a university dormitory greeted me on the other side. A large rectangular room, roughly segmented into a few equal parts by both furniture and the occasional half-wall. To one side, a surprisingly sizable kitchenette sat unoccupied. I half expected to see dirty dishes sitting in the sink, but to my surprise it was overall quite clean. I wondered idly how often it was actually used, considering the ages of most of the Wards. Maybe I’d do some cooking for them, not that I was much older than most of them, but at least I knew how to cook. I snorted, I could finally become a ‘60s housewife, hooray. Across from the kitchenette seemed to be the primary chillzone. A large TV perched on a much too small TV stand, under which a pair of game consoles, an Xbox 360 and one of those Playstation systems from Aleph, sat with bundles of cables going back towards the screen. Two comfortable looking loveseats and a pair of recliners filled out the very cozy looking little nook.   
  
Further down the room, cordoned off from the chillzone by what looked like one of those modular cubicle walls, was a pair of computers and a radio system. A dispatch center in miniature, by the looks of it, presumably that’s what Calvert meant by Console duty? I supposed I’d be familiarizing myself with it before too long. Finally, across from the Consoles, was another area sectioned off by cubicle walls, inside sat a longer table, along with some comfortable, ergonomic looking chairs, and some basic office supplies. Probably a studying area, for the Wards who went to school.   
  
I froze and groaned, earning a look back from Miss Militia. Would I… be going back to _school?_ I decided to voice the question then and there. “Uh, Miss Militia, I won’t be going to Arcadia, will I?”  
  
She seemed to intuit my worry for what it was, and I thought I detected a hint of a smile in her voice as she responded, “Not any time soon, no. Since your bodies are intrinsically tied to your powers, it’s unlikely we’d be able to send you to Arcadia in such a way as to protect your identity.” _And the other students_ _from you_ , came the unspoken end to her answer.  
  
Either way though, I sighed in relief. I was _not_ interested in going back to high school. Not anymore. “Right,” I just said, “cool.” Notably, the Ward’s common room was deserted, though I could hear someone shuffling around a bit further back towards the hallway me and Militia were walking down. Sure enough, Armsmaster themself stepped out of the room at the end of the hall. They nodded politely at me and Miss Militia.  
  
“Semi;Colon, I’m glad you decided to join the Wards. I think you’ll do well here,” they said. Awh, that was sweet. From the way that Miss Militia looked at them in quickly masked surprise, it was oddly sentimental of them, too.   
  
“Thanks Armsmaster, I get along with most of the Wards already, so I’m glad to be working with them, instead of against them.” I opted for a more diplomatic response, which seemed to satisfy them.   
  
“Very good, I look forward to performing your power evaluation.” They stepped aside, and gestured beside themselves. “This is your room here, it is notably more secure than the other Ward’s rooms, due to your nature as a villain on probation, in time, you will be moved to a different room pending good behavior.”   
  
I nodded and stepped inside. It was to be expected, really. The room was bare, but not uncomfortable. Soft off-white carpet depressed under my shoes. A twin bed sat in one corner with a blue comforter featuring the Protectorate logo, and a set of shelves and a dresser were built into one wall. A small desk with a lamp filled out the rest of the room’s furniture leaving plenty of open space for lying on the ground.   
  
Behind me, Miss Militia cleared her throat. “Perhaps…” I turned to look at her quizzically, and found her looking down at my feet with a pained expression. “Take the shoes off?”  
  
I smirked and lifted my leg up, grabbing my foot with one hand and giving it a sharp twist, detaching it at the ankle and revealing the shoe to be directly connected to the foot. “Ah.” Miss Militia said simply, suddenly looking very uncomfortable.   
  
Armsmaster, for their part, was looking at my shoe-foot in something akin to fascination. “All detachable, a kind of modularity?” They muttered, before blinking and straightening. “In any case, if you come up with something to… change that, I’ll see about approving it quickly.”  
  
I shrugged and nodded. “Sure.” And reattached my foot. No vat-grown skin off my chassis, it would save on vacuuming though, I _guess_.  
  
Miss Militia shook her head and clearly tried to distract herself from me taking my foot off. “We’ll let you get settled in now, you won’t be able to leave your room for about an hour, as we process someone else, but then we’ll introduce you to your new coworkers.”   
  
I nodded. “Sounds good, I’ll just, uh, sit here and stare at the wall, I guess.”  
  
“Well,” Armsmaster said with the barest hint of a smile, “if you stare at that particular piece of wall, you’ll find a note with the wi-fi password on it.” I blinked and stared at them. Was that… was that Armsmaster trying to make a _joke_? Miss Militia looking similarly perturbed as I felt. Huh, did that mean they’d been listening in on me and Clockblocker’s conversation earlier? Gross.  
  
Anyway, I didn’t wanna discourage the big lug, so I gave them a smile and said, “Oh, cool, thanks,” to which they gave a stoic nod in response. A moment later, they and Miss Militia were out the door, and I tried to ignore the suspicious look Militia had fixed me with as she left. What was getting into Armsmaster? They seemed to be acting differently than most of their colleagues expected of them, and certainly they had, even over the course of the interview the day before, started to act differently than even my initial impressions of them would suggest. How much of their current demeanor was some kind of in-built mental defense mechanism against their own gender dysphoria? Was being around another trans person, one who’s _out,_ having an effect on them? Well, whatever, it wasn’t my place to speculate. I hoped they’d come to the realization before I accidentally sleepwalked and started operating on them in the night.  
  
Which sounds a lot worse than it is, I swear.  
  
My thoughts paused as I heard muffled speaking through the walls of my room. The place was well soundproofed enough that I wouldn’t have heard them if I had baseline human hearing, and as it was I couldn’t even make out what they were saying. It sounds like Armsmaster and Miss Militia again, along with another girl. Too deep a voice to be Vista, and I assumed Shadow Stalker didn’t talk _nearly_ as much as this third voice was, judging by her total silence the few times she had joined in combat against me.  
  
It sounded like she was moving into the room next to me, which was interesting. A few minutes later Miss Militia and Armsmaster departed, presumably to get the rest of the Wards, and I heard the mysterious girl jump into her bed with a pronounced sigh. This _was_ interesting, I wonder…  
  
I went and took a seat on my bed, which as far as I could tell, was on the opposite side of the same wall her bed was against. Then, I rapped purposefully against the wall three times. I heard the girl give a high pitched _Eep!_ That might have been audible even without my improved ears, and snorted to myself. A moment later, tentatively, she tapped something back. It was weird though, like a pattern, mine had just been three even knocks, while hers-  
  
I blinked. Oh duh, Morse code. I used the wi-fi password Armsmaster had provided and quickly pulled up a morse code reference sheet, then played back my recording of her knocks.  
  
 _Scared shit out of me._ _  
_ _  
_I snickered at her brevity and tapped back. _Sorry, first day._ _  
_ _  
_Her response came quickly. _Me too. Hero/Villain/New?_ _  
_ _  
_Ah, she’s asking what my previous affiliation was, huh. _Villain. You?_ _  
_ _  
_ _Same._ _  
_ _  
_Interesting. I wondered if I knew her, there weren’t too many independent villains in the city, let alone independent female villains. I was an oddity in that sense, doubly so because I was a Tinker. I considered asking her name, before she cut me off a second later.  
  
 _Going to nap now. C U Later._ _  
_ _  
_I shrugged to myself, I guess I _would_ be seeing her later. __C U. I replied, then gave two quick knocks, not Morse or anything, just a little indication to say ‘Goodbye.’ She responded in kind, bringing a small smile to my face. Could it be Circus? Maybe, she was the only other indie female 'villain' that immediately sprung to mind. I'd worked with her on occasion, and we had a surprising amount in common, really. She hadn't had any need of my prosthetics though, obviously, so we rarely saw each other outside of the occasional cooperative robbery. Of course there were a few other minor ones too, but… eh. No point dwelling on it now, I’d find out later. Yeah, for the moment I’d just lay back, encrypt my internet traffic, and check my social media until it was time to meet the family.


	6. hello

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Realized I probably won't get a chance to post this tomorrow, so here's this week's Wednesday chapter early.
> 
> Long one for you all today, but it will also probably be the only chapter until next Wednesday, or possibly even Sunday, depending. I've gotten through my backlog with only this chapter to show for it, largely because I'm in the process of moving houses right now (we literally just got the keys today lmao.) I super appreciate all the support on this so far, and I hope what I'm writing at least equals, if not lives up to, the hopes or expectations everyone has for it. In lieu of any chapter this weekend and possibly next week, I'll try to be a touch more active in the comments, so if you have any questions about my plans or ideas about the story, or about the setting, now's a good time to ask them. I'll do my best to answer unless I think it would spoil something that will be an interesting surprise.

"Semi;Colon."

I blinked innocently at the tall, bearded hero who'd just burst through the door to my room with a distinctly pained expression. "Yes, Armsmaster?"

" _Please_ stop posting on PHO."

The exasperation in their voice instantly overcame what little self-control I (clearly) had, and I burst into barely restrained giggles. Armsmaster crossed their arms with a huff, watching me roll back and forth on the bed.

Once I'd regained my composure, and suitably mollified my new superior with apologies and promises not to engage in any more Discourse on my old 'villainous' PHO account, I hopped to my feet and started making for the door. "So, time to meet the kids?"

They knotted their eyebrows but stood aside, letting me pass. "You are far from the oldest member of the Wards."

That made me snort, and I shot a sidelong glance at Armsy. "But are any as _worldly_ as me?" Not waiting for an answer to my meaningless question, I trotted off happily, leaving a perplexed tinker in my wake.

Waiting for me in the common room was a motley crew. And Motley Crüe, actually. The TV was tuned to one of those satellite TV music stations, this one themed around the 'sounds of the 80s.' Dad rock aside though, I found myself in front of a group of people near my age, who were all visibly in varying states of nervousness and unease. Miss Militia, who stood in the kitchenette, watching us- or actually, _me,_ with a cautious frown, seemed to have had the Wards arrange themselves in a semicircle facing the hallway I'd just exited.

I knew all of them of course, to varying quantities of 'knowing,' but there was a certain seriousness in their demeanours, so I took the opportunity to sober up too.

On the far left of the group was Vista, she seemed a touch more mentally present than she normally did in the field, but still reminded me of a rabbit ready to bolt. Her frequent glances back at Miss Militia didn't do much to help that impression. Nevertheless, seeing her up close, with me for once not filled with the adrenaline of lawbreaking, really hammered home just how young she was. And something about _that_ drove home the fact that I was working for- hell, I _was_ basically a cop now. I pushed the thought aside for later. That was a whole other can of worms.

Next to her was the tinker I recognized as Kid Win. His tech was never actually all that interesting to me, frankly. It felt unfocused, like how frosted glass could show you the shape of something on the other side, but not any of the detail. There was… _something_ intriguing on the other side of that near opaque window, but there wasn't anything I could do to help him get at it. Although… I peered at him a bit more closely. There _was_ something I could learn fromhim about the team dynamic. More than anyone else, Kid Win's body language came across as sulky. He had the distinct air of someone who had just lost an argument, but hadn't changed their mind about anything. Perhaps owing to this, Vista and the Ward to his other side were giving him a wider berth than any other Ward had between their neighbours.

That Ward next to him was, of course, Clockblocker. My buddy, my pal. He noticed my gaze fall over his full face mask and gave a quick, covert thumbs up at waist height, not moving his upper arm. I shot him a wink in response, nice and subtle with everyone in the room staring directly at my face.

To Clock’s left was Gallant, one of the Wards I’d interacted with the least. For a while there, I’d bought into the story that he was a tinker like Kid Win. However, a chance examination I'd gotten to perform on one of his gauntlets (which I may or may not have been responsible for pulling off), revealed that the tinkertech inside had that same, glassy, unfocused air as Kid Win’s laser guns did. Whatever Gallant’s power _was_ , he used a suit made by his teammate when he went into combat. Strangely, I never saw him in combat again after that point, only the other Wards. For his part in the moment though, his body language read as ‘leave me the fuck alone.’ Which felt kinda weird for a guy named Gallant. His arms were firmly crossed, and his visored gaze was fixed up and to the side of me, like he was intentionally ignoring me.

Beside Gallant was Aegis, whose beefcakery I had born witness to too many times. Of all of the Wards, he seemed most at ease, and I wasn’t sure if that was an affected air, a natural confidence, or just a feeling of assurance after his mutually respectful arrest of yours truly.

And beside Gallant was of course- no one. Huh? Wasn’t there… I counted the Wards out. Yeah, now who were we… Oh! “Where’s Shadow Stalker?” I asked them, mostly directing the question at Aegis.

I may as well not have, because the whole team flinched as I mentioned her name. Clockblocker started sputtering as Gallant moved to rub the bridge of his nose in apparent annoyance, before realizing he was in his armour and abandoning the attempt. “She’s- Well you know her, she was… we had to- they, uh-” Clockblocker’s mouth kept moving without saying anything meaningful until Aegis firmly cut him off.

“As of a month ago, Shadow Stalker is no longer with the Brockton Bay Wards.”

I blinked and waited a moment. When no further explanation seemed forthcoming, I shrugged and said, “Sweet, more couch space for me.”

At that, Vista snorted. “Not like she was ever here anyways.”

The atmosphere in the room had turned a touch frostier since I mentioned her name. Not that it was directed at me or anything, but the mere memory of the black clad heroine seemed to sour the awkward group. A glance towards the kitchenette told me that Miss Militia held less than zero interest in breaking the tension, and despite his relaxed attitude (or perhaps because of it), it was pretty clear Aegis was content to leave the atmosphere strained too.

I let myself sigh internally, and etched this whole scenario into the .txt of grudges, Shadow Stalker herself would receive the blame for this one. Once again, it was up to Semi;Colon to valiantly save the day from the throes of a mildly uncomfortable social setting! I firmly tamped down my own social anxiety for the greater good of both myself, and my acne ridden team. And then, with significantly more force than most people could muster, I flopped down onto the couch.

Normally, this would be pretty unimpressive, save for its irreverence of what was clearly a bit of an event. The fact, however, that said couch was seven or eight feet away from where I had been standing, managed to make it a touch more impressive. I silently thanked whatever Norse deity watched over the Ikea corporation as I landed, _hard_ , on the couch without actually flipping it, or even damaging it.

As I landed with a hard, yet comfortable _tumph_ , the brooding silence in the room froze further into an absolute dead silence. No one moved or spoke for a moment. I stayed on my back in the position I'd landed in, one hand resting under my head, calmly meeting the stupefied gazes of the whole team save Gallant. _He_ was still looking where I had been standing, and something about the tension in his posture gave me the distinct impression of someone who'd just bitten into an onion.

Miss Militia's soft, exasperated sigh was the cue I needed to remember that I should say something. "Come on, let's chill."

"Chill?" Vista said, dripping skepticism.

"Yeah," I answered, uncaring of her skeptics, "you're all standing around in a semi-circle like you're here to exorcise a demon or something. Get over here, let's chill."

I scooted over on the couch, making sure there'd actually be enough room for everyone in the chillzone. This had the fortunate side effect of the team all realizing at once that someone would have to sit next to me. What followed was one of the funniest sights of my life, as the entire team scrambled for the free seats. I imagine Clockblocker wouldn't have minded sitting next to me, but I have a strong suspicion that he shared my thoughts that literally anyone else sitting next to me on one of these little couches would be ten times as hilarious as him sitting there.

And holy shit, was I ever right. When the dust settled, Gallant was there to limply flop down onto the cushion next to me as the chorus of 'Sweet Child'o'Mine' played from the TV. "So," I said brightly, "what's the occasion?"

It seemed like getting them all to take a load off was the right move, Vista seemed significantly more relaxed, and was the first to respond. “We’re going to be introducing ourselves,” she said bluntly.

I waited, again, for any elaboration, and received the same amount as last time. “Then what’s the holdup?” I asked.

Aegis answered this time, scratching his exposed jaw. “I think we’re waiting on the other new addition to the team.”

“Other..?” I blinked, then decided to stop being stupid and just put two and two together. “Oh! That chick with the room next to mine?”

My new team leader shrugged. "I guess? I don't use my dorm that often, haven't been back there recently."

"Is yours one of the ones at the end?" Vista asked.

I nodded. "Yeah. The very end."

"I was wondering why they were cleared out, that was her then. You two talk through an air vent or something?"

It seemed that Vista spent more time in the dorms than Aegis did. I wondered why, then shook myself to half-answer the question. "Nah, I overheard her outside." Not a lie, but not the extent of it. For some reason I felt like keeping the morse code thing a secret, not like there weren't a hundred ways to covertly talk to someone if you needed. But the morse code thing was cute, and dare I say, a little romantic.

Oh Christ Hebert, you haven't even met the girl and you're calling tapping back and forth on a wall with her 'romantic' entirely unprompted. _Please_ get a grip and stop being weird. She might be like, Vista's age or something.

Some song by that Australian band that sang 'Land Down Under' came on. Besides that, the only sound in the Wards common room was Miss Militia speaking quietly on a bulky cell phone.

This silence at least proved too much for Aegis to take. "So, Semi;Colon, do you have any questions about being a Ward?"

Without missing a beat I replied, "do we get discounts at any stores or restaurants?"

Aegis stared at me for a moment. "Do we _what?_ "

Clockblocker looked as nonplussed as someone could without a visible face and answered. "Yeah, some places will give you a discount if you're in costume, it's not really kosher with the folks upstairs though."

"When we're doing PR patrols, some of the vendors along the docks will give you some of their street food for free," Vista added.

"Yeah, but they just want the free publicity," Gallant said, speaking for the first time since we'd sat.

Clockblocker shrugged easily. "Hey, they fill my belly, I'll fill theirs. Or something."

I looked at him. "Can you even eat with your mask on? Is there some kinda food hole there?"

" _Guys_ ," Aegis cut in, "we're not even supposed to accept street food _anyway_ , not since that thing with the biotinker in Toronto."

Vista scrunched her face up, apparently whatever happened in Toronto was pretty unpleasant.

Another new voice chimed in, Kid Win's this time. "I didn't see that stop you from taking some of Galip's Gyros the other day."

Aegis froze and shot him a betrayed look. "Hey, Galip's trustworthy, he might as well be _Protectorate_ as far as I'm concerned."

Kid Win's mouth pursed as Aegis emphasized 'Protectorate,' for some reason. He started to retort but closed his mouth as Vista quickly started speaking, preemptively cutting him off. She pointedly avoided looking at either Kid Win _or_ Aegis as she hurriedly aired a question towards me.

"Hey, SemiColon, why don't you wear a mask, aren't you worried about your secret identity?"

"Nah, this isn't my first face." For some reason, everyone stared at me after I said that. I was surprised they hadn't sussed that out earlier, really. What other explanation was there?

"So, what, it's not your real face?" Came Gallant's vaguely confused response.

I sighed, any flare of temper I might have once had over something like that was long since replaced by the sheer boredom of explaining the same thing for the thousandth time. "It _is_ my real face, Gallant, you may notice it's on _all_ of my bodies. It's just not the first one I ever had."

"Huh. Alright." The way Gallant answered _did_ however make me grate my teeth a bit. It was the answer of someone who applied only half a second of thought to a concept before slapping a label that said 'Just Weird' on it and not thinking any more deeply. Wasn't he supposed to be a knight in shining armor? Like yeah he's just a teen, yadda yadda, but could he at least _try?_

"I wonder if that would qualify you for a stranger rating?" Clock mused. "Not your face specifically, but being able to construct new ones."

"Could you imitate someone else's face? Or voice?" Vista asked.

I just shrugged. "I dunno, I can do a pretty good Mouse Protector impression. Does that count?"

To my surprise, Vista actually giggled at that. "Not really what I meant, but I definitely want to see you show her that one day."

Kid Win was staring at the wall distractedly. "Hey, wasn't there some Aleph movie about the face thing? With that CEO?" He asked.

I knew what he was talking about of course, and groaned, hunching over. "God. Yeah. Nicholas Cage, he's only a CEO on our side though. One of my girls 'recommended' it to me, it was…" I sat back up and looked up at the ceiling. " _Something else._ "

Kid Win nodded gravely, suppressing a grin of his own. Clearly, he was a fellow connoisseur of the absurd and terrible movies Earth Aleph seemed to love to produce.

I was glad I'd taken the time to banter my new teammates, the room felt a lot more relaxed, we were no longer in danger of any errant hot knives coming to slice through the tension.

So of course, then the _other_ new member of the Wards showed up.

"Wards," came Armsmaster's clipped baritone from the dorm hallway, "your attention here please."

Everyone else stood from the couches, and I followed suite a second later once I caught on. Out from the hallway came Armsmaster, and languidly trailing behind him was a girl. She was in street clothes, aside from a plain grey domino mask under which dark green eyes darted about the room, and looked to be about my age. Long blonde hair tumbled down loosely down her back, and she stood tall, but leaned slightly backwards, simultaneously projecting confidence and curiosity, while avoiding any kind of hostile body language. It was as ideal a way as any to enter the room, certainly more graceful than how I did, almost like it was rehearsed or planned. _Or_ that was just how she stood, not everyone's an image obsessed manipulator, I supposed.

"This is your other new team member, I'll leave her to introduce herself," Armsmaster said. They gave us all a polite nod, locked eyes with me for a moment, then made their way to the elevator.

The new girl frowned after them for a moment and muttered something under her breath, but then turned to face us with a toothy smile. "I guess that's my cue, I'm Lisa-" She paused and blinked, then took off her domino mask, revealing high royal cheekbones. "I'm Lisa Wilbourne."

Aegis, quick on the uptake, stepped forward and offered his hand. "Good to meet you, are you a new Parahuman?"

Lisa began to reply, but her eyes darted past Aegis and she shut her mouth abruptly. I followed her gaze toward Gallant just as the armoured Ward started to speak. "No. She's not. That voice…" I saw his fists clench, and heard his power armour _whirr_ , augmenting his grip. "You're-"

The blonde girl sighed and let her arms hang limp at her side. "Yeah, you'll all know me as Tattletale."

The reactions to this reveal were… mixed. Aegis pursed his lips in thought for a second before his eyes widened, and his smile became tightly strained. Clockblocker took what looked like an involuntary step back before he regained control of his nerves. Kid Win, if it was possible, shrank inward even further. Vista looked the least bothered out of any of them, to my surprise, and merely eyed the blonde warily.

Now, in light of this varied set of clearly knowledgeable reactions, I for one felt rather silly as our gazes met and I asked, "uh, who?"

She stared at me for a second, then snickered. "Well, _almost_ all of you."

"Sorry, I, uh, don't get out much." I shrugged modestly.

We all looked in surprise as Gallant let out an explosive exhale and turned for the elevator. "Okay, yeah, no. I can't do this today, sorry Ca- Aegis. I'll introduce myself tomorrow. I'm out." I noticed he'd forced his fists to unclench, but that didn't match his rigid, tense posture.

"Gallant-" Aegis started to call out, but Miss Militia silenced him with a glance.

"Leave him," the older cape said.

Aegis frowned, but gave her a polite nod, and turned to Lisa and me. "Sorry, he's… having a bad day."

"I guess so," I said mildly, not sure how else to respond. Maybe it _was_ just a bad day, they do happen to everyone, I supposed.

"I antagonized his girlfriend's sister pretty badly a while back," Lisa explained, unprompted.

I still had no idea what they were talking about, but the rest of the team nodded knowingly.

"The bank robbery?" Asked Clock.

"Yeah."

I held my hands up in a stopping gesture. "Okay, hold the phone. We're sitting down, and then _I'm_ getting told the context about all this."

Vista and Lisa both snorted, then shot each other a suspicious glance. Everyone sat down though, to my surprise. Lisa took the newly empty spot on my couch.

Aegis started the conversation. "Before that, how about the rest of us all introduce ourselves properly, now that Ta- _Lisa_ has gotten a headstart on us."

"Sure," said Clock, while Vista and Kid Win nodded in the affirmative.

"Great." Without further ceremony, Aegis pulled off his mask, revealing a genuinely handsome hispanic face with kind eyes and tousled, shoulder length black hair. "I'm Carlos Ortiz, good to meet ya."

Me and Lisa nodded at him, and I offered a smile. Next up was Clockblocker. He depressed a pair of latches of his helmet's neck joint, and carefully pulled it off. A surprisingly pale, boyish face came from under it, much softer features than Aegis, but with a unique, manic energy dancing across them. His hair was shorter, and _gingerer_ , but it was still long enough to fall just past his ears in natural, loose curls. "Dennis Caulfield, at your service," he said with a smirk.

I let myself giggle at his antics. "You know, you look _exactly_ how you sound."

"I'm not really sure whether to take that as a compliment or not," he said, peering at me suspiciously.

"Who knows?" I responded, mirroring his earlier smirk.

"I'm really not sure how I feel about another _comedian_ on the team," said Kid Win, drawing our attention his way. His own helmet and mask was a kind of light power armour, easier to move in than Gallant's, but seemingly less protection. It came off without any fiddling with latches like Clockblockers. "But at least you're actually funny." He gave me a dorky grin, and I realized if I would be spending any time around Kid Win, I'd need to find the thesaurus page for 'dorky.' "I'm Chris Wynn."

I blinked at the scrawny, acne ridden young man in front of me. "Hold on, your last name is in your cape name? Is that even allowed?"

He winked at me, but he couldn't quite _actually_ wink, so it was more like he blinked but didn't quite _totally_ close one eye. "It's the last place anyone would expect to look."

I barked out a laugh at that, and Lisa chuckled next to me. "Alright, fair."

I hadn't noticed Vista take off her mask, but when she started to talk, it was already in her lap. "And I'm Missy Biron. I've been in the Wards longer than any of these clowns." She carried herself well, here and now, despite her age. We seemed to be back in a social wheelhouse she was comfortable in, more so than the awkward cold of subdued tension I'd originally walked in on. She was, as expected, a young girl with dirty blonde hair, all of which was obvious even when in costume. What I hadn't expected was, looking closer, the two or three faded scars on her face. Results of a rowdy childhood? Or her work as a Ward? Another scar trailing down her neck into her suit implied that they were likely more widespread than just her face, too. "When I said I wanted more girls on the team, you two _aren't_ exactly who I meant…" She paused, and gave a quick smile to ease the comment. "But I hope we'll get along anyway."

Vista wasn't bad, as quiet as she was in the field, and I had genuine respect for her. "You always did come off as the most experienced one," I said honestly.

But the youngest Ward narrowed her eyes at me. "Flattery will get you nowhere."

"No, actually-" Lisa's voice cut in, sounding somewhat surprised despite herself, and I turned to find her looking right at me. "She genuinely means it."

I blinked at her. "Huh? I mean yeah. But how do you know?"

"Actually yeah, what _is_ your power?" Asked Dennis, sneaking a sidelong glance at Chris. "It's not telepathy, right? There's _no way_ it's telepathy."

Lisa grinned and narrowed her eyes, peering at the two of them. "Hm… oh, wow. Neither of you got it right, it's not telepathy, and it's _definitely_ not detecting pheromones. Clockblocker, that's not even how pheromones _work."_

Dennis _tsked_ , and Chris snorted. "I _told_ him that!" The tinker said.

"What is it then? I guess you're a thinker of some kind?" I asked.

Lisa yawned and stretched, then fell back into a more sprawled out position on the couch, reminding me uncannily of a cat for a moment. "Yeah. I'm intuitive, you could say. I can put together complex information from very, very small clues."

The rest of the Ward team made various sounds of suddenly 'getting it,' but as someone who'd never actually seen her power in action, or _heard_ of her, I was curious for more info. "So, what, you need to gather enough clues and then, 'boom,' you make a breakthrough?"

The blonde girl turned to face me as the rest of the team began talking animatedly to one another on the other half of the chillzone. "No, not quite." She paused thoughtfully. "It's hard to explain without showing it off. Basically I constantly get fed inferences- usually very accurate ones- from minute information present in anything I'm looking at. Microexpressions, the way someone's shoe is tied, their gaze resting on something in the environment."

"Huh," I said. "Sounds useful."

She frowned. "It's annoying, more than anything. I can't even _eat_ fast food unless I'm specifically focusing on shutting off my power." She looked at me seriously. "You do _not_ wanna know what most of those poor burger toppings go through to get to Micky D's."

I nodded, that made sense, a realistic downside for that kinda ability. Curiosity overwhelmed my good manners as I glanced at her. "Get anything interesting from me?"

At that, she actually grinned. "My power slides right off of you, actually."

"What?" I asked, belatedly noting the rest of the Wards had focused on our conversation.

"Yeah! The only clear tell I got from you tonight was when you said Vista- uh, Missy, was clearly experienced. I could tell you were being truthful."

"Damn," said Dennis, "so Semi-" He broke off and smacked his forehead. "Hold on!" He pointed a gloved finger at me accusingly. "What _is_ your name, anyway?"

Carlos froze for a second, but recovered quickly. "Crap, yeah, sorry SemiColon, got totally sidetracked, you wanna introduce yourself?"

I chuckled. "No harm no foul." I briefly contemplated pulling my head off like a dullahan, like how they took off their masks, but a brief check on my internals revealed that wasn't even possible with this body. Curses. A prank for another time. "My name is Taylor Hebert, good to meet you all."

A chorus of cheesy 'good to meet you's echoed back at me.

"Taylor, huh?" Lisa muttered, eyeing me. Then a little louder, "that's a cute name."

"Thanks," I replied casually, "my mom gave it to me." Not strictly true, but dad once said that had been the name Annette wanted, if she ever had a girl.

"How kind of her…" Lisa muttered, _again_. She was absolutely boring holes into me with her eyes now.

Well, I wasn't going to be awkward about being checked out by a cute girl my age. At least, I'd be as non-awkward as I could be. "Uh, you were saying something Clo- Dennis?" I prompted.

"Oh yeah!" He snapped his fingers. "So does, um, Taylor just like, nullify your power completely? Does it have something to do with her, uh, robo-bits?"

Lisa snorted. "It has _everything_ to do with it. It's not that my power doesn't work on her exactly, it's that it's obsessed with her _body_ , it's giving me constant jargon and capabilities and technical mumbo fucking jumbo, but I'm only catching _glimpses_ of what _she_ might be thinking."

I grinned at her. "Not the first time a girl's told me she's obsessed with my body."

"Har har." Lisa rolled her eyes.

"S'neat though," I said, "built in thinker defence from my flak screen of fucked up biotech."

"Yeah…" The blonde mumbled, then winced and pinched her brow. "Shit, thinker headache." She looked up at me. "Only 12% of the original you in there?"

Huh, I guess her power was giving her _something._ "It'd be zero percent if I could help it _now_ ," I said, frowning.

"Wards." Miss Militia's authoritative voice was unusually shaken as she interrupted from the direction of the kitchenette, she was walking briskly towards the elevator, sliding her phone back into a pouch. “I just got a call, something is happening with the Empire Eighty Eight, we’re completely certain what.” The other Wards started to get up, but she raised her hands. “ _No_ , you aren’t going out. Not until we know what’s happening. It's... Aegis, you give Semi;Colon and Tattletale the primer on the Console,. When he’s done, Kid Win, you should run them through the technical side.” The two Wards in question nodded. “I apologize for my quick departure. The PRT Image department should have sent you both an email about meetings tomorrow.”

Huh, they moved fast. Lisa raised a hand. “Actually Miss Militia, we haven’t been given any email login details yet.”

“What? I thought that he was supposed to-” The Protectorate cape clicked her tongue. “Alright, I’ll tell… _someone_ to get them to you on the way out.”

"Miss Militia, what's happening with the Empire?" Lisa asked. Her voice was firmer than it had been, like she was _demanding_ an answer, rather than asking. I was surprised she would take that kind of tone with Miss Militia, of all people. But to my surprise, Miss Militia sighed, and quickly held out a hand to stop the elevator door from closing. 

"They're..." She struggled for a moment, then pursed her lips. "You deserve to know. It appears that Kaiser is dead."

Everyone gaped at her, myself included. "Kaiser's... _dead?_ " Kid Win repeated incredulously. 

"Who killed him?" I asked.

Miss Militia let go of the elevator door. It stayed open for a moment as she rubbed her eyes and looked back up at us. " _Apparently_ , Hookwolf." Then it closed, and she was gone.

Me and the Wards- No. _The Wards_ , all of _us_ sat for a few moments in silence. That was... I couldn't even begin to fathom what would cause one of the most loyal capes of the Empire to turn on their leader like that. The Nazi shitheads the Empire attracted might have been ambitious and greedy, but Kaiser was- _had been_ notoriously good at keeping himself at the top. It was the kind of political upheaval the gangs _rarely_ saw. The last time something this major happened had to have been when Marquis was birdcaged. We all looked around at each other, not sure how to process the information.

“There's nothing we can do about it right now,” Carlos said finally, making his way towards the ‘schoolwork’ section of the common room. “Come here, Taylor, Lisa, I’ll get you started on the primer materials.”

Me and Lisa glanced at each other. We were still shaken, but with nothing else to do, we shrugged, then followed.


	7. imaging

The days following my _official_ initial introduction to the Wards were a blur of activity. No news had officially spread about Kaiser's demise, but speculation on PHO was rampant. Even were it not though, as someone living in the literal Brockton Bay PRT headquarters, the signs were all around me.

Groups of analysts scurried past my escorts and I from meeting room to meeting room as I was brought to the Public Imagery department. An urgent tension permeated the air that was affecting everyone in the building.

Besides me, that is. I was being affected by something _else_ , and frankly it was much more acute than whatever all of _them_ were worried about. I glared at a wall socket as my PRT escort led me, grim faced, down the endless corridors. I didn't _get_ headaches. It shouldn't even have been _possible_ for me to get a headache! The physical mechanisms for it just straight up weren't there! So why, please God tell me why, did my _head feel like someone had taken a lumberaxe to it?_ I groaned again and undialated- hold on. Undialated? Was that right? Probably not, but I couldn't even bring myself to Google it with a thought. I _undialated_ my pupils as we passed under a particularly flickery fluorescent light tube.

I'd imagine it's pretty obvious, but my physiology should _not have been capable_ of pain due to light sensitivity either. Did the PRT building just have, like, low-grade power? Was that a thing? My internal diagnostics all came back green when I'd instantly run them after 'waking up' and unplugging with this awful god damn headache. Were they feeding me _poisoned electricity_? There were weirder cape powers, but I somehow felt like there were plenty of other ways to fuck with me than that.

"We're here." I was brought out of my pained musings by the gruff voice of my escort.

Sure enough, on the door in front of me hung a plaque that said 'Public Imaging - Costuming.' I blinked at it and turned to the escort. "Cool, thanks guy."

Guy glared at me. " _Lieutenant._ "

"Oh!" I gave him a hearty clap on the shoulder and a _big_ smile. "Congratulations dude!" Then, I strolled in without waiting for a response.

Listen, I had a headache.

"Hey! Welcome back, Taylor," Sarah said as I stepped in. She was the head of design for the Wards PR team, a tall, somewhat heavyset woman with kind eyes and a quick smile. Who, fortunately, totally lacked the frosty demeanour that the PRT's field troop employees had towards us. From what I saw in front of me, Sarah had clearly been busy in the couple of days since our first meeting.

"Now, these are all preliminary, so they won't fit quite right, but they're just to get an idea."

"That's alright," I said, eyeing the offered costumes, "I can tailor myself to them, to make'em fit."

"Ha! Not on my watch." I turned to the seamstress, mildly startled. "You're not putting me out of a job that easily."

I rolled my eyes at her, belatedly recognizing her jovial tone through the haze of omnipresent _yowch_ clouding my head. "Ha, yeah. Sure."

Turning back to the costumes, I looked more closely at them, barely registering her voice at first as she asked, "are you okay, Taylor?" A sudden warmth on my arm had me flinching away- but it was just Sarah's hand.

"Yeah. Yeah, sorry Sarah." I shrugged sheepishly and scratched my head. "I've got a headache, s'all. Let's just focus on the costumes."

"If you're sure…"

When had I become so shy about physical contact like that? It wasn't an issue when I was in a cape fight, nor had it been when I was being arrested. I sighed, I was deluding myself. It was because Semi;Colon didn't have a problem with physical contact, but Taylor did. I was Taylor right now. I'd eventually built up a resistance to it, because I'd had to to be a cape, but before that… yeah.

I didn't wanna see the recordings themselves. Camera quality at the time was crap anyway. No, I just wanted to _remember_. So I did.

;;;

"Taylor, you _need_ to rest, you can't go out there like this."

I'd been pacing back and forth, nervously popping out and rearranging my hand joints, one hand, then the other, one hand, then the other, almost faster than the eye could see. Not too fast for my eyes, though. The repetitive action kept me grounded, and the _clickclickclickclickclick_ sound it made reminded me that time was passing.

"No, no. I have to, Cynth, y'know? I can't _not_. I need it and I couldn't go out like _this_ in the daylight."

The girl I was talking to, Cynth, or Cynthia when I wanted to mess with her, was leaning against the wall next to the garage door control for the abandoned autoshop we'd taken over on the edge of Empire 88 territory. Her hair was loosely gathered on one side, styled in cornrows and coloured the cyan blue of clear tropical water that she'd been favouring lately.

As for me? I was naked, for whatever that was worth when your body was just a featureless metal shell. My vats I'd been growing synthetic skin in had succumbed to a bacterial infection of some kind. My _stupid_ stasis fluid hadn't done the job I needed it to, and now I was out _weeks_ of materials.

" _Taylor_ ," Cynth's voice took on a pleading tone, "just give me a couple days, the others- they'll pitch in, if everyone donates a bit-"

"No!" I barked- and winced as my voice betrayed me, instinctively dropping into the lower register I tried to avoid. I took a breath, and said more calmly, "no. I'm not- I can't take your money, or theirs. Not for things like this. It's _my_ responsibility, I'm doing this so all of you can be happy, so you don't have to live with someone _extorting_ you."

Cynth flinched at the implication I'd leveled at myself. "It's not like that Taylor. You _know_ that." When I didn't reply, instead opting to continue to clumsily screw in armour plates, she sighed. "At least let me go instead of you."

I froze, then looked up at her sharply. One of the reasons I appreciated Cynth so much, one of the reasons I _trusted_ her, was that she never pulled her punches with my designs and ideas, but she never judged anything because it was _weird_ either. She'd seen me with circuits and wires hanging out of my chest, operating on my own _organic heart_. She'd seen me slough out of the first variant of the stasis fluid, hacking up gobs of the slushy, gooey substance like I was drowning. She'd laughed along with me when I'd tried stumbling around on my first attempt at digitigrade legs.

All of that and more was why I couldn't let her do this. "No," I mumbled, a bad habit I was trying to break. "No," a little louder this time, and I turned to her, metal jaw clacking, "it's my power, it's my responsibility. I'm not going to have the others- _you_ be my… what, my _minions_?"

"Taylor…" Cynth walked in front of me, ducking her head to meet my eyes. Then, she put her hands on my arms, and I flinched. Not because of her touch, but because I _couldn't_ feel her. "You're not a villain," she continued, quietly, softly, "we _want_ to help you. We _want_ you to be able to do this for other- other people like _us_."

I wanted to nod. I wanted to say ' _Yes, please. I can't do this alone. I don't want to go to jail. I don't want to be forced to stop doing this._ ' I even _was_ going to say that. But something flashed in my eyes then, a memory so strong and visceral and _vile_ it was like a physical _thing_. Something I could _feel_ on my skin that wasn't skin, which lacked even the nerves needed to _transmit_ sensation.

Harried shapes flashed under my eyelids even as I tried to suppress them. A closed locker door, a porous muck of diseased material, a broken wall, a shattered arm held together only by the metal of that same locker and the gross amalgam it had contained within. The quiet, freezing alleyway where Cynthia had found me, half-dead. With a physical effort, I held my breath and suppressed them, and slowly, gently, they faded. The mental silence that followed was a reprieve, before the burning in my lungs forced me to take a deep breath. I didn't need to breathe as _much_ now, but I still needed to.

Reality came back in a rush. I was on my knees, and the concrete had dented where I fell. I was lucky I had already armoured my legs. Cynth's arms were around me, and I hadn't noticed because I couldn't _feel_ her.

"I'm sorry," I said thickly, "I'm sorry." I swallowed, and it felt like I was forcing a gulp of the rancid, stale air that I remembered down my throat. "I can't let- I have to do this myself." It had to be me. If I was going to go public, to let myself be seen as a criminal, I couldn't- _wouldn't_ drag the others down with me.

Cynth let out a quiet sigh. "Alright Taylor. Okay." She loosened the hug and leaned back, meeting my eyes while she held onto my shoulders. "Message me if something goes wrong, if you need me to move your workshop, if- just- _anything._ Okay Taylor? _Anything_ that you're comfortable with, I'll help."

I exhaled, and felt some of the tension and frightened energy drain from me. "Okay Cynth. I- Thanks."

She smiled at me. "Of course."

;;;

The costume I picked, in the end, was as radically far from what I usually wore as you could imagine. Though, seeing as my usual 'villain costume' tended to be jeans, a sweater, and some sneakers, that wasn't saying much.

It was a one piece jumpsuit, not unlike the pictures I had seen of Lisa's old costume. That, however, was where those similarities ended. In addition to the basic form of the jumpsuit that covered me from neck, to wrists, to ankles, there was a detachable, ankle length skirt component that hung airily from my waist.

_Yes,_ I spun in it.

We spent a while arguing over the colours, _I_ had wanted to deck myself out in the pastel tones of the transgender pride flag, but was summarily vetoed by a direct order from the Director's office. It took nearly all of my willpower to grit my teeth and stop arguing. Fortunately, I at least did _like_ the design team's other suggestions. What I ended up choosing was a classy, asymmetrical design. The jumpsuit was to be a light grey verging on white, and the skirt piece would be slightly darker grey. Diagonally across my chest and wrapping around my back would be three thick stripes, one of a bright blue that reflected the light as though it was made of metal, and on either side of it, stripes of a dark grey. I was also given black combat boots and gloves, which I appreciated for their practicality, though the gloves would get in the way of any of my hand centric gadgets. Finally, as a 'mask,' I opted for something a little flashier. A plain cloth blindfold. I could see out of it just fine, of course.

All of this tied into my new theme, and the new cape name I would soon be bearing.

As a member of the Brockton Bay Wards, I would soon be known as Scendance.

I was honestly amazed at how much I liked the name. The dual meaning of the implied 'Trans' was plainly obvious to both me and the design team, but we didn't mention it, nor did any veto order come down from the big guy upstairs. I was more than fine with that.

Their idea was that I'd be 'transcending my criminal past,' as it were. They knew that for all the mind games the imaging department liked to play with their rebrands, there was no hiding who _I_ was, so they may as well make me into a poster child for rehabilitated young villains.

Well, _we'd_ be seeing about _that._

Officially, I would be a brute/blaster/striker/changer, the general public was well aware at this point of how incredibly… _mixed_ I was with my technology, but my image team would be permanently on call to curb any of my less savoury looking ideas. _Apparently_ heroes had to look a certain way, and that way _didn't_ involve spider legs.

More's the pity.

This would be my final day with the marketing team, and it went by in a blur. Sarah agreed to provide a few different versions of the costume, roughly modified for my various bodies I thought I might _eventually_ get clearance to use, with the understanding that I was capable of tailoring them the rest of the way to wearability.

My muscles didn't quite get tired the same way anymore, but I _did_ certainly get mentally and socially exhausted still. So when I got onto the primary tinkertech elevator and swiped my new ID card to send me to the Wards floor, it was with a sigh of relief.

What was revealed when the elevator doors opened as I finally arrived at the sub basement though, evoked a _different_ kind of sigh.

"All the heroes- all _we_ do is go out, look all flashy, stroke our egos, and cause property damage!" Kid Win- Chris, wasn't quite shouting, but he was only a hair shy of doing so.

"Yeah, we _cause_ property damage, but it's not like it's _on_ us! It's the fault of the villains who start the fights!" Dennis was keeping his voice purposefully more restrained, but he sounded _incredibly_ frustrated. "Besides, if _we_ don't respond to the villains, who will? What're some dudes with containment foam sprayers going to do against _Kaiser_ -" He paused. "Or, uh, Hookwolf or Krieg, I guess."

"That's why the PRT should be able to go for them _before_ they start something."

"What, like while they're planning? Good fucking luck, even with a whole division of thinkers we _never_ get the drop on them like that."

Chris shook his head. "No, _before that._ "

Dennis squinted at him. "What, in their _civilian_ identities? You think we should just _break_ the Rules?"

"No," Chris shook his head again, more vehemently this time, " _we_ shouldn't, but maybe the PRT should."

"Jesus, Chris. You think the villains will differentiate? Or not start targeting off-duty PRT officers? You think they won't hunt down you, or me, or-" He glanced at me as I finally took a breath and entered the room. "Or, Semi- Sorry, Taylor here?"

"It's Scendance, now," I said, trying to mask a yawn as I walked to the kitchenette.

Chris looked at me too. "Oh, your new cape name?"

"Scendance…" Dennis frowned as he rolled the word around. "Like Ascendance?"

I snorted. "Nah dude, _Tran_ scendance."

" _Oooooh!_ " They each exclaimed in unison, before noticing that they had and fixing each other with a glare.

I rolled my eyes at their theatrics, even as I started to assemble a pair of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

The glares seemed to set their argument from earlier back off. "We just need to get them _before_ they can retaliate, you know we-"

"There it is! 'We' again! Chris, you're _not a member of the PRT_ , you're with the Protectorate!"

"Yes, we are!" Chris countered. "The Wards are _literally_ part of the PRT! Just because we have to join the Protectorate when we graduate doesn't mean-"

"Does the way the troopers treat _you_ make you feel like a member of the PRT?" Dennis bit out.

That brought Chris up short. In fact, it brought him up _far_ shorter than I had expected it to. Dennis' face was like a stormcloud and Chris' expression in the face of it was almost ashamed. The sudden change had me pause in my jelly spreading.

"Dennis… you know I don't- I'm sorry about-" He sighed shakily. "You know that my parents put in a good word for me…"

"Ya? Well I _wish_ the rest of us got that kinda benefit."

I watched the pair in silence as Dennis glared at Chris, and Chris stared at the floor. They stayed like that for a moment.

"I'm… going to go tinker," Chris said suddenly, and stormed past me to the workshop, his head down the whole way.

Dennis sighed and watched him go, his expression softening a bit. His gaze flickered over to me as I slowly started spreading my jelly again. "Sorry about that, Taylor. We're, uh, like an old married couple sometimes." He chuckled, but I could tell it was forced.

"It's fine, everyone's got baggage." I shrugged. "His parents?"

Dennis grimaced and nodded. "Yeah, they're PRT employees. Mom's in the field teams, fairly high up, dad's in legal."

"Oh ya?" I muttered, licking my peanut butter spreading knife clean before I tossed it in the dishwasher.

"Yeah, they're pretty, uh, political. Chris looks up to them a lot."

I nodded and pushed down a wave of guilt, and the memories that came with it. "Yeah, lots of kids look up to their parents."

Dennis hit a remote as I came out around the kitchenette with a pair of plates. "Up for a game?" He asked.

"Sure," I said, "you up for a PBJ?"

Dennis' eyes lit up. "Hell to the _ya!_ Oh shit, you're my new favourite teammate."

I grinned at him. "Oh? Who am I dethroning?"

He smirked. "Lisa, after she shittalked Shadow Stalker yesterday. The two of them had a helluva vendetta before-" He cringed and broke eye contact. "Uhh, anyway, racing game?" Ignoring his obvious topic redirection, I made a face. Dennis snorted. "Nevermind, you're a philistine, we'll just do Halo then."

I rolled my eyes. "Right, right, whatever you say. I'm gonna go offer Chris the other sandwich."

Dennis blinked. "Oh. Uh, sure, I'll set this up."

I made my way down the short hallway past the kitchenette to the workshop, and knocked gently on the door. I opened it gingerly, just a crack. "Chris?"

I heard a sniffle, and he cleared his throat. "Yo?"

"Mind if I come in?"

He hesitated just a moment. "Ya, that's fine."

I opened it fully, and took in the workshop for what I realized was the first time. Chris was sitting on a tall stool in front of a workbench. His hoverboard sat, untouched, in front of him, and an array of pristine tools hung on the wall behind it.

"Want a PBJ?" I asked.

He looked up at me, and yeah, his eyes were red, obviously. "Ah, ya. Sure Taylor, thanks." I stepped over some discarded components on the ground and set the plate onto his workspace. "You here to tinker?" Chris asked, picking up the PBJ gratefully.

"Nah." I looked around the room appreciatively. "Dennis roped me into some gaming."

Chris flinched, but only said, "Fair enough."

I blinked though. Something was off about this room. I narrowed my eyes and spun around in place. Where is… what's…? My eyes widened and I froze. I had only _appreciated_ the room. It wasn't the room that was wrong, it was _me._ "I just realized…" I said as I tried to get my thoughts in order. "I haven't _once_ gotten the itch to tinker in the past _three_ days."

Chris stared at me. "Must… be nice?"

I shook my head. "I've been doing costume stuff, but I haven't even _felt_ the itch, and I get it, like, _strong_ Chris, y'know?"

"Huh…" He said, he wasn't _getting it_.

"It's _weird_ , I'm always tinkering, messing with my body, but I haven't-" I paused and ran a diagnostic for changes made in the last day. Nada. I ran it again for the past three days. _Nothing._ "I haven't done _anything_ in the last _three_ days!"

"Huh," he said. "Maybe it's the change in environment? Maybe it'll just come back twice as strong in a couple days."

I scratched my chin thoughtfully, an old habit. "Maybe… it's just _weird_ though." I perked up as I heard a familiar choral arrangement of menu music echo tinnily down the hall to the workshop. "Well, guess I'll talk to ya later Chris."

"Sure, seeya." I started to open the door, but he called out. "Oh! You should talk to Armsmaster. He's pretty good at helping with tinker stuff like that. Just- He's sort of a dick sometimes, try to stay on his good side."

I blinked, I hadn't even thought of that. Getting used to relying on other capes would be _weird_. "Ya. Sure, I might do that." I shot him a quick smile, and left to join Dennis.

;;;

Elsewhere in Brockton Bay, sixteen Nazis were beaten to a pulp, and left bleeding and ziptied on the ground. Above them, on a burning building that had once housed a dog fighting ring, a stylized _S_ was spray painted onto a brick wall next to a flag made out in five stripes of three pastel colours.


	8. press

I took a deep breath as the crowd murmured just beyond the curtains. In my short (yet also incredibly long feeling) few months as a Cape, I'd _never_ had to interact with a crowd _this_ size. Dealing with a surprisingly large online following was easy, getting along with a team of traumatized child soldiers was a little harder, dealing with the manchildren who wanted to lord their institutional power over me was a lot harder. But talking to a group of reporters in _person_ ? As an out, transgender Cape? In _Brockton fucking Bay?_ I don't think there was a way to measure the kind of anxiety that would produce.

So, there I sat. Willing myself to do _something_ tinkery to set my mind at ease, and as usual being disconcerted when I failed to find the willpower. I still _could_ just sit and tinker when I wanted to, I had found. But I needed to _think_ about it, it didn't just _happen_ anymore.

I wasn't sure entirely, but I thought I didn't like that very much.

Outside my little preparation zone beside the stage, I heard the crowd laugh. Missy was up there right now, standing on a box behind the podium, and the crowd was absolutely _eating_ out of the palm of her hand.

That was why she'd been set to introduce me and Lisa, the press absolutely _loved_ Vista, and she had grown to love the appreciation herself, it seemed.

"But we don't have you all out here just for a status update on the Wards," the green clad little heroine said. Oh, 'status update' was my cue to get ready. I stood and brushed off my skirt, despite the total lack of dust. It just felt right. "Well, in a certain way, we did actually. I'm pleased to reveal to everyone that we have _two_ new members of the Brockton Bay Wards!" I grinned as the crowd clapped enthusiastically, she'd have made the hallway to my room miles long for saying it, but Vista was _adorable_ when she was trying to sound mature. Not that she wasn't mature for her age, but y'know, it's the cognitive dissonance of knowing this child has been involved in more violence than most adults will see in their life that makes it funny. Yeah, _funny._ "The Ward program is a place where young parahumans like me can learn to control their abilities, learn to work with a team, and above all get a _clean_ _slate_ on which to build their future heroic career." The way that Vista stressed 'clean slate' wasn't lost on the crowd, and a quiet, speculative murmur started up almost as soon as she finished speaking.

On the opposite wing of the stage, behind her own set of curtains, Lisa gave me an encouraging thumbs up. I was mildly upset that I hadn’t really gotten to hang out with her yet. It’d be nice to talk to someone _not_ already embroiled in the personal lives of the longer serving Wards. Every time I tried to though, she… well, she basically brushed me off. We _seemed_ to get along normally, I thought at least, we worked well together at the planning for this event, and we had a good time in the Console and Use of Force classes. But when it came to just hanging out, it was always straight to her room with her. Hell, I’d hung out with _Missy_ more than I’d hung out with Lisa, and Missy was actively going to school!

"So with that being said, and without further ado, I'd like to welcome our two newest members to introduce themselves!" Vista exclaimed with all the gusto of a seasoned performer. Lisa and I locked eyes, nodded, and each stepped out from behind our curtains. 

I had plastered what I thought was a charming smile on my face, which had gotten the 'It's good enough' seal of approval from that Chambers character, but I felt it become a bit strained as the clapping audibly _hitched_ and slowed down on me and Lisa's appearance.

Even with a totally different costume, my long, curly black hair wasn't exactly subtle. Plus as I'd said to Gallant (who, come to think of it, still hadn't introduced himself to me properly), this face was on _all_ of my bodies. Anyone who didn't recognize me already was no doubt having a neighbour whisper who I was, even with my cloth blindfold on. While I was a Known Troublemaker for most of Brockton Bay, Lisa's former crew had apparently flown largely under the radar. That didn't mean she was _unknown_ though, and she got her fair share of suspicious glances as the pair of us stepped up to the podium that Vista vacated.

The murmurs died down as we took our places to either side of the podium. In front of us was the assembled press of Brockton Bay, and a not unsizeable crowd of ordinary civilians. I tried not to focus on any individual face, and schooled my expression into a more neutral, relaxed smile.

“Thank you Vista,” I said with a glance towards the shorter Ward standing to the side of the stage. I turned back to the crowd and gave them a wide, cheesy grin. “And, well, _hello_ to all of you.”

A couple people in the crowd chuckled awkwardly, probably just the sympathetic types. I’d been warned that my reception would likely be… frosty. Lisa, had she been alone, would’ve had the benefit of there being some time between when she was arrested and her debut. Not so with me. 

“It’s certainly a pleasure to meet you all for what is, I’m sure, the first time,” I drawled. That one got a few more laughs, at least. In light of the fact that it was obvious who I was, my coaching and lines had been focused around being joking about it, but not irreverent. I was lucky in that none of my crimes had resulted in any serious injuries or deaths, that meant I could afford to be a little blasé about being a former villain. 

Lisa elbowed me gently (for her and her squishy baseline human elbow’s sake rather than mine,) exaggerating the gesture so the crowd could see. “Quit stalling and introduce yourself,” she admonished, _just_ loudly enough for the microphone to pick up.

I shot her a peevish look and bumped her with my hips. “Alright, jeez, can’t a girl work the crowd a bit?” _Finally_ , that exchange drew the more relaxed, wider spread of laughs we’d been looking for. I emulated clearing my throat loudly. “So! Good to meet you, everyone, my name is Scendance, and I’m your newest Ward.”

Lisa leaned in to the microphone, pushing me out of the way, and jauntily introduced herself. “And I’m Accipiter, your _second_ newest Ward!” The crowd applauded us politely, with a few good natured chuckles mixed in. Our plan to distance me from my Semi;Colon persona via, uh, good vibes, basically, was going off without a hitch. 

“Now, I’m sure you’re all dying to know what our powers are. What could we _possibly_ bring to the greatest Wards team in North America?” I asked with a smirk at one of the cameras. “Well, my friend Accipiter here is a _real_ Thinker, she’s like Sherlock Holmes on- well, in spandex.”

True to my words, Lisa’s new costume wasn’t much different than her old one. A soft brown spandex suit, this one augmented with some lightly armoured patches and a utility belt, and a short, beak-shaped headpiece/helmet-y thing that hooked slightly over her domino-masked eyes like a visor. Attaching feathers to the outfit in some capacity had been briefly considered, but ultimately thrown out. Feathers had fallen rather out of vogue since the Simurgh had shown up in 2002. They had decided that the beaky headpiece was enough to tie into her new cape name. ‘Accipiter’, from what she told me, was the genus that hawks belonged to. Hawks, of course, being known for their eyesight, which they used to pick out prey in the brush far below. 

“Quite right, Watson,” Lisa said. Then, she started to preen as she described her own abilities. Her instructions from the Image Department had been to play up the idea that her power was largely based on visuals, rather than the more accurate idea that it was based on _information_ , visuals just happening to be the most common way lots and lots of information could be gleaned quickly. It wasn’t a huge misdirection, but any small disinformation like that could apparently be an advantage.

The press conference went on like that for a little while. Lisa and I bantering and establishing our cape personas, and eventually explaining the sanitized version of my own powers. It was… extremely weird to do that. My powers had really defined the last half year or so of my life. They were what I _did_ , there was no watching movies, no reading or writing, my biggest concession to socialization outside of power usage was posting on PHO. I had maybe been a _little_ tunnel visioned, in hindsight. 

“-and before we go to questions, we have one last message to give you, from the PRT _and_ the Protectorate as a whole,” Lisa finished, then looked at me expectantly. Oh, right.

I looked firmly out into the crowd, and pulled up my little speech. The rest of the press conference had been relatively freeform, even if the beats were planned. This, however, was an official statement, so wording was important. Or so I was told.

“First, thank you all again for being here. The Bay has been tense for the past few days, and I’m sure you’ve all heard the rumours as to why.” I slowly looked across the crowd from one side to the other. “I’m afraid that I can now confirm for you all, according to our sources, the villain known as Kaiser is dead.” The crowd broke into nervous chattering, but I projected my voice even louder and went on. “The Brockton Bay Parahuman Response Team and the East-North-East Protectorate would like to reaffirm to you now that in the wake of his death, and whatever follows it, we will continue to do our utmost to protect _everyone_ , no matter your walk of life, race, gender, or sexual orientation.” That last bit had earned me a couple rolled eyes, but mostly tentative signs of approval from the Image Department. “So, that’s why myself, Accipiter here, and the-”

Lisa tugged on my finger, catching my attention and causing me to hitch in my speaking. I glanced down behind the podium, just in time to see her press the ‘Soft Panic’ button built into it. I carefully _didn’t_ widen my eyes and continued talking.

I was just reciting the speech by rote now, focusing my attention on the crowd, and on Lisa. The soft panic button’s primary purpose was if we felt as though the press conference was getting out of our control, it would give us a convenient reason to be ushered away. That was clearly _not_ what was going on. No, she must have hit it for its second meaning, that there was a threat somewhere in the room that would have been made worse by the sudden intervention of an emergency evacuation by PRT Troopers that the ‘Hard Panic’ button would’ve brought. 

Lisa put her hand on my back and started rapidly tapping something in morse as I spoke. The speech was nearing its end even as I saw PRT Troops filing into the backstage in my peripheral vision. I focused on Lisa’s tapping on the small of my back.

_BCK RIT. BLD. WHT SHRT. BOMB._

This time, I couldn’t stop my eyes from widening. Fuck me. What the fuck? A bomb, here? How the fuck could that even get in through the _notoriously_ dense security screenings you needed to get past to get this close to a Wards press conference? I scanned the crowd where Lisa had pointed out and located the guy in a second, now that I knew what I was looking for. 

Bald wasn’t quite accurate, I thought as I slowed my senses down. He was bald _ing_ . Tufts of downy brown hair ringed a shiny, rounded dome. He looked like any middle aged office worker, slightly heavyset, poor posture from years at a desk, a collared shirt that was just a _hair_ off white to let you know it had been in his regular wardrobe for years.

But he had a bomb.

What the hell was I going to do about it?

I couldn’t stay in this slowed perception bullet-time state forever, I needed to think fast. Well, inherently I was already thinking _extremely_ fast, but y’know. I glanced at the PRT Guards by the front of the stage, they were all listening to their headsets. Good, that meant they’d been alerted that _something_ was wrong. Hopefully they’d let me do this.

Time inched back to its normal subjective rate as I finally finished the speech to a tepid applause. “Well,” I said, “this has all seemed a little impersonal so far, I think. Why don’t we have questions by the front of the stage, everyone come on up here, gather ‘round.” I hopped off of the podium and walked to the stage front, then I kneeled down. The security goons' eyes looked like they were about to bug out of their skulls as the crowd slowly inched its way forward. I just mouthed ‘trust me’ at who I thought was the leader. 

That would have to do, because a moment later the whole stagefront was crowded by both reporters and civilians alike. I glanced up over the crowd. _Except_ for the balding guy, who seemed somewhat bewildered by this turn of events. Good. I shot a sideways look at Lisa, who immediately gave me a nod, even as she winced in what I’d come to associate with her being in pain from a Thinker headache. She must’ve brute forced her power to get on the same page as me. That was fine.

The densely corded, synthetic muscles in my legs tensed, and my heartrate spiked in preparation. I let loose the limiters on my adrenal glands that normally kept me from freaking out, and let them dose me in full. My stance changed ever so slightly. My weight shifted mostly onto my front leg, it was enough that the crowd around me took a subconscious half step back. 

Then, my head snapped up, my eyes locked with the man’s suddenly fearful stare, and I _launched_ myself at him.

The stage hadn’t exactly been made out of _cheap_ materials, but it wasn’t poured concrete either, as evidenced by the loud _SNAP_ and slight give under my leg as I shot off. I barely skimmed the top of the crowd, my quickly calculated trajectory kept me _just_ from hitting them as long as I kept my feet pointed. This _wasn’t_ a combat body, but it was still far and above the human baseline. I landed amid the now vacated chairs of the audience, caught myself on the ground with my arms and tucked into a fast roll. I was about halfway to the balding man now. My head came up while my legs tensed to launch me again, and I saw him desperately fumbling with his phone with one arm, and gingerly holding a suspicious looking briefcase with the other. _Ugh, of course it’s a briefcase._

As our eyes met for the second time, his expression completely _melted_ into abject panic. His fumbling stopped, and for a second, I hoped against hope that he’d simply given up. But the nature of the cornered rat is not to give in. He gulped, even as my legs pushed me off of the ground in a powerful bound that would bring me straight to him. His briefcase holding arm wound back and- oh no.

“KAISER!” He screamed, and the sound of his cracking, nasally voice signalled the fastest decision I ever made. 

I was a quarter of the way through the air when he loosed the briefcase past me, towards the crowd. My trajectory was set, but my bodies were filled with plenty of tricks. Cats have a natural reflex known as the ‘Righting Reflex,’ it’s the source of the adage about how they always land on their feet. From a combination of a flexible backbone, a lack of collarbone, and instinctual knowledge, they’re able to twist themselves mid-air to entirely reorientate their bodies. Now, my own body’s capabilities, while _inspired_ by that, also went a touch _further_ than that. Silently, I hoped no one was recording this, it wasn’t particularly pleasant to watch. 

In a series of calculated, specific motions, my body _twisted_ as I sailed through the air. My spine, even with its primarily tinkertech alloy vertebrate, _groaned_ as it folded unnaturally. My center of gravity shifted as all four of my limbs slightly readjusted their lengths and locations. Finally, my left arm, already splayed out, extended just a _bit_ farther and- _yes._ I intercepted the briefcase, just _barely_ , hooking the handle with two of my fingers. Unfortunately, even though I was much heavier and moving through the air with much more force than the briefcase had been, it still threw off my flight.

I was three quarters of the way to the balding man as I grabbed it, but I had no time to pay him any attention. I quickly retracted my arm and pulled all of my limbs in, gripping the briefcase tightly to my chest. This had the side effect of pulling me into a tight mid-air spin, the same way crouching down would speed up a figure skater’s pirouettes. Never was I more glad I didn’t have the ability to vomit anymore. 

What I _hoped_ would happen, was that I’d careen into the balding dude and knock him out cold before he could get a message off, or worse.

What _did_ happen, was moments before impact, my spin brought me nearly face to face with him, and I stared directly into his strangely desperate-yet-fanatical, manic glare as he slammed his thumb down onto his phone with a certain finality.

Then, everything went white.

Then, nothing.

;;;

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update, an Armsmaster interlude! What could be going on inside the thick head of the East-North-East Protectorate’s mightiest hero? 
> 
> It feels pretty weird to be doing this, but if you like my writing and you genuinely actually have a couple spare dollars, I’ve set up a ko-fi which is linked below. I’ve been- as many people have- without a job since the pandemic started, and while I’m currently on track to interview for a few different ones, things are still tight, and anything at all helps. I know my writing can be a little bit clunky, but if it’s something people are interested in, I’m offering 500-1000 word snippets based on prompts submitted with any donation over $5.
> 
> I’ve spent like five minutes now typing out like a dozen different versions of ‘Please only donate if you really can and want to’ without really knowing how to phrase it gingerly, so I’ll just leave at that. Thank you all for reading!
> 
> https://ko-fi.com/alobomb


	9. Interlude - Armsmaster i

Something was wrong with his power, Colin was sure of it.

He was still able to _work_ , mind you, but even as he did it itched at him, _ground_ _away_ at him like a swinging hinge desperately in need of some oil. 

Miniaturization, that was his specialty. All about cramming as much as he could into as small a space as possible. It had always been a challenge, one he relished, the low thrill of excitement as he used up every little nook and cranny of space in already impossibly compact systems. 

But something was wrong with it, something had _been_ wrong with it, possibly ever since he’d triggered, and he was only just figuring it out.

He glared at his computer monitor, the only source of illumination in his windowless, faraday caged workshop. Years and years of old designs reflected themselves in his reading glasses as he clicked through his archives. Now that he was _aware_ something was wrong, he saw it in _everything_.

Colin just didn’t know what it _was!_

He growled in frustration and slammed Alt-F4, unceremoniously closing down the CAD program, and turned off the screen. In the now total dark of his workshop aboard the Rig, Colin Wallis sighed, his head in his heads.

He’d had creative blocks before. He’d come up against technical restraints and limitations more times than he could count. He’d even faced down the complicated bureaucracy of rules and regulations that governed what Protectorate tinkers could make and use, up until he’d become the enforcer of them himself.

The unease he’d begun feeling ever since he first sensed that _wrongness_ crawled over his skin and left him feeling like he’d bathed in greasy dishwater. How could he solve something like this? A problem so intangible he didn’t even have words for it? One that didn’t even have a starting point, just an end that was _wrong_ , that was deeply embedded in _everything he had ever made?_

Well, not everything. Colin spun his chair around, 45 degrees or so. “Lights,” he intoned, loudly and clearly.

The flat, fluorescent lights layered into the ceiling clicked on, bathing the room in plain white. Colin found himself face to face with Armsmaster. His armour, that is, standing upright in its case. Beside it, his halberd. He’d changed the design, recently, but even before that it had always been _easier_ to work on than his armour. The head of the halberd, originally a no-frills, bland, flat shape, with only a simple diagonal spike off the back and a sharp, interchangeable tip coming from the top was now an ornate, curved crescent moon. In place of the utilitarian back spike, a pair of hooked points danced from its rear, and the pike at the top stood much taller. This shape, while more fanciful than his usual equipment, felt… right. Moreover, he’d had much more success fitting functional equipment into it. He just wasn’t _sure_ what the _difference_ was from his armour!

Colin abandoned his halberd for the moment, and turned to his armour, examining it.. Not for wear, or for maintenance, he had accounted for that earlier. No, he was staring at it intently, like he was _daring_ it to reveal what he’d been doing wrong.

Hard, square lines. A stern, but not unfriendly brow. Boxy armour plates lining each articulated joint.

It was his second skin, his heroic persona, the leader of the East-North-East Protectorate. So why didn’t it feel like it was _his?_ Lots of Capes added to their personality in costume. Ethan’s dry wit became sarcastic irreverence, his wife Wendy’s quiet empathy became almost motherly concern, Hannah… well, Hannah was an exception. Tess too. As far as Colin was concerned, they were as close to ‘true’ heroes as real people could get.

Something inside of him felt like it gave a sharp _tug_ as he thought of them. The way they held themselves, how the others treated them. He… he wished he could be like that. _Truly_ be like that. As… heroic as they were.

But _Colin_ wasn’t _Armsmaster_ . Armsmaster was a character, a part that Colin played, often somewhat unsuccessfully. Wendy _was_ Battery, Hannah _was_ Miss Militia, Tess _was_ Dragon. 

_Colin_ wasn’t _Armsmaster_.

His shoulders sagged as he sighed. Another day, another failure to figure out what was wrong with him. Well, he _was_ the leader of this Protectorate branch, he couldn’t afford to mope about it _all_ day. Colin nodded to himself once, firmly. If he couldn’t figure out what was wrong, he’d just have to continue as he always had, tinkering as if there _wasn’t_ anything wrong. That’s what had worked until now anyway, right?

Satisfied, if not content, he turned to his workbench to get started- and froze. Oh, right. He’d offered to store Semi;Colon’s- well, Scendance’s other bodies in his workshop. It was far from the PRT Headquarters and imenetrable to radio signal, after all, no risk of her using them for a breakout.

That, and he’d intended to examine them. _Intended_ being the keyword, he thought as he walked up to them. They were lined up next to his work bench, stock still, eyes closed. What he hadn’t realized about her bodies was just how much of them _was_ organic. He’d started to attempt to disassemble part of one, just the hand of her so-called ‘tinkering body’ with its spidery limbs and too-long fingers, and had quickly found himself far, far out of his depth.

It wasn’t that there was a _lot_ of organic material inside of her bodies, on the contrary, the sum total heavily favoured inorganic parts, computer and mechanical systems and the like. No, it was that it was all completely _integral_ to the functioning of the mechanical systems. Based on what she had described her power as, and on field reports from the Wards, Colin had assumed that the organics of her bodies were at most, skin deep, besides maybe some technology assisted organs. What was _actually_ the case, was that her bodies really were _true_ integrations of human and machine.

Nerves and blood vessels were strung alongside electrical wires and hydraulic cables. Her dermis and epidermis were organic, while her hypodermis was a contiguous shaped sheet of _some_ kind of flexible-yet-durable metal alloy. Below that, a thin layer of connective tissue lead into her muscles, which varied greatly in design from body to body. Her bones were made from yet another, more rigid, Tinkeralloy, but seemed to have strange adaptations for purposes he couldn’t discern, not without actually opening up a body. Which, of course, he couldn’t do without damaging them.

Colin had bitten the bullet and filed a request to New Wave to borrow Panacea for a day or so, some time next week, to facilitate that. While he _could_ just destructively analyze one, it didn’t feel right. It was similar, actually, to how his power felt _wrong_ examining his own work recently. For some ungodly reason, he felt a deep admiration for Scendance’s work. And in a way, it made him regretful he’d never met her in the field, where he could see the bodies in action.

But again, enough moping. Colin took a deep breath, he had some tinkering to make himself do before-

_BUZZ!_

He sighed as the ‘doorbell’ to his shielded lab rang, a glance at the screen embedded next to the door showed Hannah standing in the hallway. “Open,” he said, clearly as before.

“Afternoon, Coli-'' She started to say, pulling down bandana, before freezing with a visible start at the sight of Scendance’s bodies. 

He gave her a tight smile. “Uncanny, aren’t they?”

Hannah swallowed. “Quite. Are you sure they’re not… recording, or something?”

Colin pulled down a folding chair that had been hanging on the wall behind Scendance’s bodies and offered it to his coworker. “Positive, all vital signs are nil, they’re secure.”

“Nil?” Hannah accepted the chair and stepped into the room, the blast door closing silently behind her. “Won’t they start to rot?”

He shook his head. “Scendance- or, well, Taylor, says we have about a month's leeway before that happens, I didn’t see the point in asking why yet.”

“You have a plan for them then?” Hannah looked at him oddly.

Colin nodded. “Assuming they pass me and Panacea’s inspection, we’ll let Scendance set up some of her stasis tubes to hold them in until such time as she’s authorized to use them.” 

“I see.” His friend looked at him for a moment, her lips pursed. Colin waited calmly, there were few people he trusted more than Hannah, and she wouldn’t have sought him out in his lab if there weren’t something important. “How are you, Colin?”

He blinked, and answered automatically. “Fine, why?”

“You seem different, lately.”

That gave Colin pause. Had Hannah detected his frustration over his power? That was… no. She’d only noticed that something was bothering him. Colin wasn’t a practiced liar, but he had read a few articles on the psychology and tactics of those who were. He didn’t _like_ the idea of lying, or at least avoiding the real truth to his friend, but he wouldn’t- he _couldn’t_ give anyone the idea that he was having trouble tinkering. Not while _Dauntless_ was waiting in the wings to take the East-North-East Protectorate from under him. But something else _had_ been bothering him, he’d been meaning to talk about it with Tess anyway, and he trusted Hannah just as much.

“I’ve been feeling… sympathetic towards Taylor Hebert.”

Hannah’s eyebrows shot up. “ _Really?_ ” She asked incredulously.

Colin gave her a mildly offended look. “Yes, really.” 

“Well… why?” Hannah asked, peering closed at him. “You’ve certainly never seemed sympathetic to Chris.”

He grimaced, feeling an unfamiliar pang of guilt inside of him at the comment. “No, he- It’s… a tinker thing, it’s hard to explain.”

But as usual, she wouldn’t let him get off that easy. Hannah leaned back and crossed her arms. “Try me.”

Colin sighed again. “I always knew what my specialization was. It was never a struggle for me, I knew what I wanted and it _felt_ -” he cringed, internally, he hoped- “right.” 

“So you relate to her sense of drive?”

He nodded. “I suppose. Chris is quite driven too, but the trouble he has is the kind that I can’t help with. I’ve petitioned for another tinker from outside of Brockton Bay to tutor him, one that had similar difficulties, but the Director has been… difficult about it.”

Hannah snorted. “What else is new?”

“Quite.” He sighed.

"By the way, did you get the Traveller's threat assessment?"

Colin blinked at the sudden topic change. "I did, yes. It's unfortunate that they've chosen now to move in, with the... issues the Director has been causing."

Hannah nodded in agreement. "Trouble begets trouble."

"So it would seem."

Seemingly satisfied, Hannah’s posture relaxed. “Have you been watching her and Lisa’s introduction? It seemed to be going well when I saw it on in the cafeteria.”

Colin blinked. “That’s now? I must have lost track of time.” He grabbed a remote from his desk and tapped a few buttons, revealing and turning on a TV screen embedded into the wall over his computer. 

They tuned in just in time for several things to happen at once. 

“What’s she doing?” Hannah said with a frown as Scendance gathered the civilians close to her on the stage.

“I’m not-” Colin started to say, before he was stunned into silence by Scendance suddenly _leaping_ out of frame. The camera stayed on the crowd for a moment before the cameraman registered what she had done, giving a moment for Colin to examine the snapped stage frame from the force with which Scendance had jumped. 

When the camera found her again, she had already landed, and was gearing up for another leap towards- a civilian. One that hadn’t joined the crowd in front of the stage. A balding man holding a briefcase and a phone. 

“No…” Hannah muttered, pulling out her own tinkertech phone. 

In the week that followed, Colin would find himself scrubbing over the footage that followed numerous times, trying to gauge exactly how long Taylor would have had to react to the throw, and what _exactly_ it was her body had done in mid-air. 

He watched the briefcase sail through the air, Taylor’s strange, inhuman contortions as she simply _plucked_ it from the air in an uncanny tangle of limbs, and the strange _untangling_ that occurred as she pulled them all back into herself and held the briefcase to her chest.

He distantly noted the space behind the newest Ward warp in the way that indicated Vista quickly using her powers in their simplest application- increasing the distance between two points in space. Then, with a bright flash that temporarily blinded and severely rattled the camera, Scendance _exploded_.

Colin leapt to his feet and impulsively shouted, “No!”

And right as he did, a familiar voice behind the pair of them screamed, “AAAAAAAAAAAGH!” 

The two Protectorate heroes jumped away with twin yelps, and Miss Militia brought a heavy pistol- a desert eagle? To bear on the voice.

On the other end of the weapon’s iron sights, Taylor’s face, terrified and panting heavily, looked back at her. Beneath her face, and under her upper body, an enormous snake’s tail coiled protectively in on itself. 

“Secure, you said, Col- Armsmaster?” Hannah asked, her voice tight.

“ _Colin_ ,” he responded firmly, “and yes, _supposedly._ ”

Taylor blinked at the two of them dazedly. “Holy fuck,” she said. “I just fucking blew up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things I had to look up for this chapter: Names of the skin layers, halberd designs.


	10. Interlude - Lucy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, everyone! Betcha didn't expect to see me again tonight! This update comes from a prompt from a supporter on Ko-Fi! It ended up slightly longer than the 500-1000 words I said, but I'm using it as an opportunity to expand on some greater story stuff, so they get a bonus few hundred words.  
> The prompt, from thepsyborg was:  
> Semi;Colon encounters a too-enthusiastic fan who doesn't really care about her impact on *actual* social issues and just thinks cool robot arms should be a human right.

I groaned as I staggered out from the electronics shop window I’d been thrown into, pointedly  _ ignoring _ all of the juicy,  _ juicy _ technology that was around me.  _ So _ not the time. Glory Girl had bodily thrown me, oh, a couple dozen streets away from the Lowe’s I’d been raiding for supplies. Seemed like she’d been out on a double date at the Olive Garden next door with her unpowered boyfriend, her sister, and a… cute dentist? Apparently? Just my luck.

To be clear, I only knew all of that because she explicitly, and  _ angrily _ , told me while dangling me by my arm several stories up. I  _ really _ needed some kind of anti-flying-brute countermeasure.

I reached up to push my hair out of my eyes- and belatedly realized that my right arm was  _ totally crushed _ where the New Wave cape had been holding as she spun-and-flung me.

That… wasn’t good. I glanced up at the horizon towards the Lowe’s, but saw no one coming in pursuit. Had she gone back to her date? Mildly insulting, but that much better for me. Crap though, I needed materials to fix this arm…

I jumped as a girl I  _ extremely hadn’t noticed _ who was standing  _ right next to me _ screamed. “Oh my god! Your arm!”

“Hey! Hey! Shhhh,” I tried to shush her, “shhh, it’s okay, look, it’s metal, I’m not bleeding!”

“Duh you’re not  _ bleeding, _ ” she said, “you’re  _ SemiColon! _ ”

I looked at her more closely. A fan, then, and a rare fan too, a cis one. “Yepper, that’s me,” I said. I was still kinda reeling from being thrown further than the distance was to my house- Oh god. I was all the way across the city now. Was I going to have to walk home? Fuck, this was going to suck.

“Oh my god, that’s so cool!!”

I gave her a weak grin. “Yeah, thanks.” A quick glance Lowe’s-ward showed a continued lack of blonde, Parahuman missiles heading my way, so I risked looking back at the fangirl. “Look, I just got tossed over like, a good chunk of this part of the city by Glory Girl, I really shouldn’t stick around.”

She nodded firmly as I took in her face in the dying evening light. Straight black hair framed a friendly face with Asian features that hadn’t quite lost all of its baby fat to adulthood yet. “In that case,” she said, then produced a set of car keys with a flourish, “get in!” She clicked them, and a 2001 Honda Civic on the other side of the strip mall parking lot chirped.

She had the grace to look sheepish as I slowly turned back to her with a raised eyebrow. “I… couldn’t remember where I parked,” she explained.

I sighed. “Well, why not?”

;;;

Well, now at least I remembered why I avoided talking to fans- ones that  _ didn’t _ need my help- for protracted periods of time. Honda Civic chick, who’s name turned out to be Lucy, was more than happy to fill the silence with questions, none of which she gave me time to answer.

“So how do you generate enough power from normal human body processes to power muscles  _ that _ strong? I mean, I saw that last fight with Aegis and,  _ wowie _ , you totally held him off until he started flying!” I grit my teeth at the reminder. “Can you fly? Maybe you could if you gave yourself wings? Hmm, aren’t dragons and stuff constrained by that square whatsit rule? Would a human sized winged lizard-person have the same problems?”

On and  _ on _ it went. I mean, any other day I’d be amused, or even  _ happy _ to indulge a fan like this, but… I’d had a bad day, to put it lightly. I was stressed and tired and this girl was  _ clearly _ dodging around something by filling the silence with constant questions.

With an internal sigh, I knew I had a feeling what it was.

“You know,” I said loudly, speaking over her. “You can ask what you  _ really _ wanna know.”

It was the trans thing. It pretty much always was with cis people, not that I  _ necessarily _ begrudged them for it. I knew probably better than most how limited resources and education on trans people were, and while I wasn’t…  _ happy _ to make up for it, I was at least willing to do so in a professional sense. It’d be about how I passed so well, or about how I  _ knew _ , or about if I was  _ sure _ . And that wasn’t even getting  _ into _ the  _ lesbian _ thing.

“What I… really want to know?” Lucy repeated, shifting the car into park as she stopped in the parking lot of the playground I’d asked her to drop me off at. 

“Yeah, I’ve heard it before, go ahead,” I said, looking her in the eyes. “Just ask.”

She bit her lip and looked down, breaking eye contact and suddenly coming off as  _ very _ nervous. “Well… it’s- it’s just embarrassing and I don’t wanna-...” 

Lucy awkwardly cut herself off, and I suddenly found myself  _ extremely _ worried that I’d horribly misjudged the situation. Was she about to… you know…

“Can you give me robot arms!?” Lucy suddenly exclaimed.

Oh. Or that.

“Uh,” I said, eloquently. “You know I mostly work with… like, transwomen, right?”

“Oh! Yeah, I do, and that’s, um.” She paused awkwardly. “All very cool and good, I support it, like, for sure!”

I nodded. “Sooo…” I was being a little bitchy about it again, I admit. Don’t  _ worry, _ I apologized later.

“I have arthritis in my hands. Like, pretty bad. Pretty bad and getting worse.”

I blinked at her, processing the new information. Then, I opened up my power and-  _ Huh. _ That was…  _ different. _

“Aren’t you a little-”   
  
“Young?” She interrupted me, her expression unusually solemn, from what little I knew of her. “Yeah, it’s not exactly  _ super  _ common for someone my age to develop it, but it, uh. It happens.”

“So you want… robot arms? Not just for me to replace or tidy up your joints and muscles, but the full arms?”

Lucy nodded vigorously, another sunny smile illuminating her face in the dim light of the streetlamp outside. “Yeah! Obviously! Who  _ wouldn’t _ want robot arms?  _ Everyone _ should get to have robot arms!”

I stared at her then, but even as I did, her irrepressible personality slowly beat its way through my bad mood. Ugh, and I was  _ just _ getting ready for a good mope too. Finally, I let myself chuckle. “Well, you’d be surprised how many people don’t. Lots of people get freaked out by a tinker modifying their own body after the, uh, whole Mannequin thing.” 

Lucy nodded solemnly. “He gives everyone who wants cool robot arms a bad rap.”

“Truly.” I agreed. Then I paused to think for a moment. I did need what materials I had to fix up my current arm,  _ but… _ My power was telling me some interesting things. I hadn’t really tried to ‘examine’ a cisgender person with my power in a while, but what it was telling me now made sense with what I had learned since I last did try. Lucy must have felt like her arms were betraying her. Like they weren’t  _ hers _ anymore. An extremely localized kind of body dysmorphia, no one else I’ve examined with it must have had anything like that, but Lucy did. And my power wanted me to  _ do something _ for her.

“Alright Lucy,” I finally said, “let’s get you some new arms.”

She stared at me breathlessly for a moment, then loudly  _ squeeeeeeed _ and threw her soon-to-be-replaced arms around me. “Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!”

I chuckled awkwardly. “Right, sorry, personal space please, Lucy.”

She quickly broke off and returned to her side of the car. “Aha, sorry SemiColon, thank you!”

“No problem, Lucy. And you can call me Taylor.” I smiled awkwardly, my head already swimming with schematics for… very  _ plain _ arms, all things considered. No cannons, or tasers, or multitools, or welding torches, or  _ anything _ . Just normal, basicass arms. With only a normal human body to support them they wouldn’t be able to give her super strength like I had or anything, but they’d still be extra strong and durable. More importantly, they’d never really break down, and if I built them like… yeah, like  _ that _ , they’d even be able to extend and grow slightly as  _ she _ finished growing.

They might be plain, but I could tell with certainty that my power knew it was what  _ she _ needed.

And that’s what was important.

“Okay Taylor, let’s go! I wanna see your workshop!”

I snorted and started to lead the way. The workshop probably wouldn’t impress her, but at least Cynth would keep her occupied while I built the arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lucy is a lowkey reference to a character of the same name from the Taylor Varga fic, which I've been slowly working my way through for over a year now. I kinda like the idea that in each altpower AU there's also an alternate Lucy who's somehow specifically obsessed with the thing that Taylor's power happens to do.


	11. rooftop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update was intended to have a couple more scenes in it, but as usual with fight scenes the length ended up snowballing a bit longer than I was comfortable with. This is my first time writing any sort of cape fight, so my apologies if it's a little rough. Further context on what happened in the last few in-story weeks to come in the next update, where the other two scenes that would've followed this will be!

Treble-laden, but somehow bassy _cracks_ were filling the night air of Brockton Bay yet again, as they had consistently for the last few weeks. On my left, Missy shifted nervously against her impromptu backrest- my tail. Unfortunately, dealing with in-fighting skinheads wasn’t on the docket tonight. Well, it was, but not the unpowered ones. There were only a few Empire 88 capes left that we could spare manpower for, and two of them were going to be here tonight.

One had already shown up, as Aegis had been careful to whisper into his headset. Othala sat crouched in one corner of the dingy warehouse we were overlooking. Barely illuminated by the moonlight, it was only my enhanced vision that let me see her fidgeting in visible anxiety.

In my ear, Lisa’s voice murmured, “she’s here without leave from Krieg. In costume only so the others wouldn’t bother her, hoping no one will mention it to him. She’s not expecting a fight, but is extremely worried about being seen, it’s nearly meeting time.”

Without leave? I guess this wasn't a ploy on Krieg's part then. Silently, I triple checked the new attachment to my index finger I'd made with Armsmaster's help. Still in working condition, of course, but I couldn't be too careful. My tinkering urges still hadn't properly come back, and those headaches after going into sleep mode were only getting worse. I was hopeful my… rapid departure into a new body would change that, but I'd had no such luck.

Aegis tapped my tail, drawing my eye, and then he ever so slowly pointed to his right. My breathing stilled completely. We'd expected at least one of them to case the joint, but it was still nerve wracking. Over the edge of the rooftop, from a rusted access ladder, crawled a man. But it wasn't who we were expecting.

"Shit." Lisa's voice was in my ear again. "That's not Victor. One second…"

She'd have all the time she needed, because me and the other two Wards on the rooftop could _not_ afford to make a sound. Vista's breathing picked up minutely before she forcibly calmed herself, and then my vision was sealed completely as the small window in her cocoon of warped space closed and cut us off from the midnight light.

It was a use of her powers that I hadn't predicted, but that apparently had been in practice for a while. By warping the space in a cocoon around us such that light was diverted _around_ it, she was able to completely remove our silhouettes from view. Mind you, the trick was totally useless in daylight, or even in a somewhat bright part of a moonlit night like tonight. Half spheres of deep blackness tended to stand out in those environments. In a shadowed place like where we were though? Where the darkness was deep? It acted as a powerful camouflage. The primary downside was, for it to be totally effective, _our_ sight was cut off too. No light coming in meant nothing for our eyes to process.

"I didn't get much off of him," Lisa finally said. "But I think he's one of Hookwolf's. Maybe… Victor sold Othala out? No. Someone else sold Victor out, Victor doesn't know, Hookwolf is setting a trap to try and grab them both."

I nodded to myself and tapped a quick morse code _'C'_ for 'copy' onto my wrist, which was transmitted back to Console through our audio connection.

This made things more complicated, but not unsalvageable. If it was just unpowered gang members, we could still afford to engage. Something was giving me a sinking feeling though. It wouldn't just be unpowered ones. Not to deal with _Victor_.

My fellow ex-villain apparently had the same concerns. "Vista, can you make Scendance a small window? I need to get an idea of what's happening."

Instead of answering, Vista simply did as requested.

"Awh shit," was Lisa's immediate, tired response to the video feed from my eyes. Both of our targets were below now, hugging each other tightly, but it was who had joined us on the rooftop that prompted her reaction.

Alabaster, Stormtiger, and Crusader all crouched together over the industrial skylight that overlooked the warehouse floor. Around them, a dozen skinheads made final weapon checks.

"This is a show of force." Lisa had started speaking quickly, unsurprising given how much there was to disseminate. "They think Victor's going to turn tail and join with Krieg, they want to intimidate him and get Othala on Hookwolf's side- or in Hookwolf's custody at least." I nodded, it made sense. Othala's healing was one of the most valuable non-combat powers the E88 as a whole had had access to. "They don't think they'll actually have to fight."

I nodded again, three combat capes against Victor, who had no brute rating? He didn't have a ghost of a chance if he resisted. Despite his significant, stolen level of combat skill, he was still at best a support asset. A new voice cut into our secured comms, Armsmaster. "Wards, disengage as soon as it is safe to do so, I'm calling the operation off."

I heard Missy grit her teeth as she closed the small window to our hidey hole. She was frustrated, we all were. How many times now had we been about to get the drop on some Nazis, when something _else_ had come up? It was absurdly frustrating.

Miss Militia's voice joined the increasingly crowded tac channel. "How many of Hookwolf's capes are there?" Her voice was sharp, hurried.

"Three," Lisa answered quickly. "Well, four if you count Victor."

"Hookwolf isn't where our intel said he'd be."

Everyone was silent for a moment, I felt _both_ of my teammates tense to either side of me. "You think he could be intending to see to the ambush personally?" Armsmaster finally asked.

"It's likely." Her motorcycle was audible in the background now.

" _Shit._ " Lisa summed up all of our thoughts nicely.

"Are Scendance, Aegis, and Vista able to exfiltrate now?" Armsmaster had entered full damage control mode, clearly.

"They're on the same rooftop as twelve skinheads and three of the Empire's frontline capes, _no they are not able to leave now!_ " Awh, Lisa was getting upset on our behalf, that was cute.

"Accipiter, stay professional."

Silence, for a moment. "Sorry, sir."

"Apology accepted. Miss Militia and I are on our way, as are Assault and Battery. Wards, if you see a chance to leave, _take it_ , otherwise cut and run when we engage."

Missy looked like she _desperately_ wanted to retort, but being surrounded by Nazis left her no outlet. I tapped _'C'_ to Console again, then reached over and gave the youngest Ward a supportive pat on the back. She slumped a little and nodded, well… that was fine. I'd chat with her when we got back.

One of the regular, non-Ward console operators broke into the channel. "Armsmaster, Miss Militia, you are being diverted to a different Parahuman emergency, please change your destinations to Fourth and Blythe."

"What? What's happening?" Miss Militia's voice was tight.

"Lung and Oni Lee have engaged Krieg, Menja, and Fenja around Fourth and Blythe. Chevalier, Dauntless, Assault, and Battery will be responding as well."

"What about the _Wards_?" Armsmaster wasn't shouting, but their voice had every cadence of barely suppressed anger.

"Velocity, alongside the PRT operation already scheduled to disrupt this meeting, will use their assistance to capture all criminal Parahumans on-site."

Even in the total darkness of our cocoon, I could _hear_ the other two Wards look at me, and each other, uneasily.

"Hold o- PRT operation scheduled? And I wasn't informed?"

"We will discuss it later, Armsmaster." My stomach curdled as what would be the final new voice of the night joined into the call. Director Calvert. "We will set your headset to the Lung incident command channel, you have been granted temporary charge over PRT forces assigned to the situation. I trust you will handle them well."

Armsmaster barely started to get a word in before their signal was cut off- presumably reassigned to the Lung channel.

I grit my teeth. Aegis, Vista, and I were in one of the most precarious positions _I_ at least have ever been in, and he was choosing _now_ to showboat against Armsmaster?

"Now, Wards-" He was interrupted by my tapping _'CS?'_ in Morse, a request for his callsign. "Ah, yes." He paused a moment. "Coil." I blinked. Bit of an odd choice, wasn't it? Mildly villainous sounding. Though I guess I wasn’t one to talk, given my actual villainous history and also having literally the lower body of a snake. Maybe he got it when he was lower in the organization, I was pretty sure he'd been part of the field teams, originally.

"Coil, _sir_ , what's the plan?" Lisa's terse voice broke the momentary radio silence.

"Accipiter, all in good time. Scendance and Aegis will be engaging the trio on the roof momentarily, while-"

Whatever the rest of the plan was, I didn't get to hear it, because right then, Crusader started activating his power. In accordance with Murphy's law, his third ghostly doppelganger appeared standing _exactly_ where our bubble was.

He immediately stood and banished the ghost that had appeared. "Wha-?" Fortunately, Crusader's hesitation gave _me_ an opportunity. I took a quick, bracing breath, and nudged Vista to drop the camouflage.

" _Wards!"_ One of the gunmen shouted, long seconds after the whole rooftop had realized.

I _lunged_ at the still startled, backpedaling form of Crusader, the muscles in my tail propelling me faster than most would expect. I needed to take him out _early_ , we couldn't afford any more of an Empire numbers advantage. Behind me, I heard the telltale _whoosh_ of Aegis bursting into flight at the fastest speed he could manage, while all over the roof space _twisted_ in on itself as Vista turned everywhere where me and Aegis _weren’t_ into a hellish funhouse for the unpowered Nazis.

That’s the thing they never bring up in PR about Vista’s power, it’s _terrifying_ to be trapped in. When she manages to gain control of a battlefield, it’s like you’ve been sent to some kind of messed up purgatory. The ambient environmental light glares at you from a dozen different contradictory directions, you feel the wind puttering out abortively from all around you as a strong breeze is cut into a dozen pieces, moving your foot an inch in any direction finds you losing your balance on slopes and ledges that _shouldn’t be there_. Being trapped by Vista really impressed upon you the sheer magnitude of how _terrifying_ Parahumans can be.

And Vista was _good_ at being terrifying.

So, I left her to it. Crusader managed to throw himself backwards, blocking my advance with a hastily summoned ghost. Unfortunately for him, his ghost’s general intangibility would work to his disadvantage today. In preparation for capturing Victor and Othala, Armsmaster and I had prepared a (much) lighter version of the tranquilizer he had created for combating Lung, and inserted a dart launcher into one of my index fingers. The darts were stored in the structure of my hand proper before it was time to fire, and I had a supply of four, one for each non-thumb knuckle.

The time to fire was _now_ , though, so even as his most recent ghost forced me to back off with a wild slash of its spear, I pointed a finger gun at Crusader. “Bang,” I said, and _pop_ went my dart launcher.

I only bothered to watch as long as it took for the dart to pass through Crusader’s projection in front of me, I knew the shot was true, and once I’d seen that, I knew their ghostly intangibility extended to projectiles too. It would bury itself in his exposed neck in a moment, and he’d be out of the fight in half a minute or so, but I had a feeling that neither Alabaster nor Stormtiger would be taken out so easily.

Turning to where Aegis had engaged Alabaster proved me wrong on at least the first count, showing that he had the regenerator well in hand. Aegis was disabling him repeatedly in various ways every few seconds while Alabaster completely failed to harm Aegis at all. That left- where was Stormtiger? The former pit-fighter wasn’t quiet at the best of times, from what little I knew of him, so how had he managed to sneak around me? I slithered myself around, my tail coiling unconsciously around one of the decrepit roof air ducts and- _there!_

Stormtiger was attacking _Missy_ directly, no holds barred, the sound distorted and cut off by the twisting space around me. Obviously, she was a veteran and one of the biggest threats on any Parahuman battlefield, but something about a grown man targeting her specifically still struck a nasty chord inside of me. I stared for a split second at how their skirmish was progressing. Vista was gritting her teeth and slowly inching back towards the edge of the roof as she threw her arms up in time with the vicious blades of air that Stormtiger was throwing at her. Gusts of razor sharp wind were redirected into her surroundings, split into pieces, and sometimes reflected back towards their wielder- though his own power seemed to shield him from their effects. He must have picked his way around the pockets of shakerspace that Vista had the unpowered gang members trapped in, but I could see the edges of her influence wavering as more of her concentration was taken up by self-preservation.

I coiled my tail beneath me not _quite_ like a spring, but similarly enough for the comparison to work. The skylight, and then two patches of Vista’s shakerspace were between me and the dueling capes, and I couldn’t rely on Vista to take her attention away from Stormtiger to let me through. “Accipiter,” I said, “I need your eyes, guide me through Vista’s power."

"Copy." I allowed myself a small grin as I tensed my coiled 'spring.' Then, I _launched_.

In front of me, as I flew through the air over the skylight, I briefly saw the panicked face of a thirty-something Nazi floating distorted in the air, as if through a kaleidoscope. Then, I landed hard, killing my momentum by forcing myself into a tight, controlled spin with a _whip_ of my tail against the ground.

Snakes locomote by taking advantage of the way their scales are angled, alongside only keeping certain parts of their length in contact with the ground. The scales had been what interested me in this body though. They were somewhat similar to, say, a cat's fur. If you pet them from their head to their tail, their fur stays nice and sleek, and you'll have yourself a purring kitty. Pet them the _opposite_ way though, and their fur sticks up, it feels like it's resisting you, and they get really irritable, _really_ quickly.

Just as cat fur is sleek in one direction and resistant in another, so too are snake scales, causing barely any friction against the ground when the snake is sliding forward, but catching minutely on grass and pebbles and general roughness on the terrain when being used to _propel_ the snake.

All of that to say, I had taken that idea, and improved it. My scales were made so that they could angle themselves in _any_ direction. And I used that to great effect here, by angling the grain of my scales so the friction-causing side directly opposed the direction I had whipped my tail against the ground, I killed nearly all of my momentum in a single, 360 degree rotation.

"Left, fourteen degrees, five meters." Accipiter wasted no time in guiding me once her view of my surroundings steadied, and I slithered off, my scales rearranging to a proper, more snakely orientation. "Hard right, seventy six degrees, two meters." I narrowly avoided the barrel of some kind of Kalashnikov that was sticking out through one part of bent space. I _wasn't_ interested in taking another sudden trip to Armsmaster's office, thank you very much.

Finally, I had a clear path to Stormtiger. Just as I was about to pounce though, the squad comms channel opened again, and Calvert's cold voice came through. "Scendance, divert to the ground floor, Victor is gaining the upper hand against our field team."

I hesitated a moment- if Victor escaped, so would Othala, and she really was the E88 force multiplier we _needed_ to capture. But in front of me, Stormtiger was gaining ground and growing wise to Vista's limitations. He was staggering his blades of air now, sometimes throwing two really quickly, sometimes throwing up an arm but not launching anything, and Vista was almost right to the edge of the building.

The choice wasn't even really a choice. " _Nah_ , I'm assisting Vista."

" _Scendan-_ " I muted the channel just as my commanding officer started to shout. Can you tell I was pissed that he _tried_ to make me choose?

_"AH!"_

I had barely processed Vista's sudden, pained yelp before I flew into motion. The twisted space around the rooftop quite suddenly untwisted itself, dumping a handful of nazis in various states of panic around our battleground. Not waiting to see what was happening, I collided full tilt into Stormtiger's side, sending us both flying into the small brick structure that marked the entrance to the building's interior roof access.

" _Ugh!_ You- _Pffhhpt-_ fucking _dick!_ " Stormtiger spat- made even less impressive by him having to literally spit out a gob of brick dust partway through.

"Takes one to know one, shitbag," I replied. Not my most witty reparteè, but those weren't for Nazis anyway.

The pit-fighter finally got his bearings and with a _yell_ airblasted me back out of the hole I'd made with his body. I landed near Vista, so I was careful to slow myself down without accidentally whipping her with my tail.

Scattered gunshots drew my attention back to the rest of the roof. Aegis had bound Alabaster with a piece of rebar, showing off his impressive strength, and was now doing his best to nonlethally incapacitate the freed Nazis _without_ getting shot. Three of them had him weaving between them, looking for an opening, while the rest were caught up either firing down at the PRT from the warehouse skylight, or dragging Crusader away from the battle- _shit._

On my other side, Vista was sitting, leaning against the lip of the building. She looked bad, blinking blearily and pale even from what little of her face was visible under her mask. From her shoulder to her ribs ran a long cut that, while at a glance not _deep_ , was long enough to have made her bleed significantly.

I cursed internally, giving her first aid couldn't wait. I rushed to her side, already dispensing a roll of gauze and a Dragontech coagulant spray from my upper tail storage.

Up close she looked even worse, I had to get to work. Grimacing, I gently pushed my tail in between her shoulders and the lip of the roof edge and held her clear from it. "Good job holding off Stormtiger," I said with a forced calm as I started spraying and wrapping her wound.

Vista met my eyes dazedly. "Not good enough, clearly."

"Hey, we're not even supposed to be fighting these guys." I twitched minutely as the gunfire on the other side of the roof and within the warehouse escalated for a moment. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Stormtiger watching me and Vista warily for a moment, before he ran off to leap off of the side of the building where the skinheads had dragged Crusader.

Aegis was just finishing disabling the rest of the unpowered thugs that'd been distracting him on the roof. I expected him to fly down and join the fray inside- but he spotted me and Vista and came our way instead.

"Vista, you okay?" He asked, rather rhetorically considering the front of her costume was fully stained with blood.

The younger Ward stared at him for a moment. "Dandy," she said flatly.

He nodded with a frown that became a glare as he turned to face me. "Turn on your _fucking_ radio, Scendance."

I froze and did so, feeling myself wilt a bit under his visible anger.

"-m nearly on scene," Velocity finished just as I tuned in.

“Scendance is back in radio contact,” Lisa said.

"Scendance." Calvert's tone was pure ice as he said my cape name. "You will-"

A last pair of bursts of gunfire had me whip my head around- and seemingly it distracted Calvert into silence too.

An unfamiliar voice, a haggard sounding older guy, breathing heavily, spoke on the tac channel. "Othala and Victor are both down. I repeat, Othala and Victor are _both_ down."

" _Down?_ " Lisa asked. "Down how? What happened?"

Radio silence for a moment from the old guy- a field team member, I supposed. I looked at the still bristling Aegis, and glanced at Vista, who was as patched up as I could get her. Then, I silently slithered to the skylight while the PRT field team guy resumed his report. "Last few skinheads we didn't see took potshots at us while we were defoaming Victor and Othala. Bad fucking luck with the aim, both KIA."

In the warehouse below, the scene was… not pretty. Hardened patches of pale orange containment foam pockmarked the debris and rubble already present inside the building. A few had PRT troops stuck inside. First aid was being applied on the spot to four different field team members, and several others were being carefully helped away by their comrades. And there, near the center of the warehouse, almost directly underneath where I was on a bed of shattered glass, were Victor and Othala.

If it weren't for the deep red pooled around her and staining her eyepatch, it'd be hard to tell Othala had been shot, so close to blood was the colour of her outfit. She was splayed out on the ground, seemingly having fallen backwards awkwardly after being shot. The odal rune on her chest that made me want to sneer instinctively was partially covered by Victor's corpse. He was draped over her. She'd fallen first, then he must have fallen to his knees next to her and- yeah, taken her hand. Then he'd been shot.

I grimaced again. I didn't feel bad for them, not really. It'd be a cold fucking day in unseasonably warm Brockton Bay when I harboured any sympathy for a dead Nazi who'd just as soon do the same to me or one of my friends.

But seeing someone who'd been so instantly robbed of life like that was… it was fucked up, honestly. I was so used to the less-than-lethal combat of cape fights per the unwritten rules that seeing how fast _anyone_ (besides me) could just be _ended_ suddenly was weird. Weird and sobering.

In my ear, Lisa was muttering to herself. " _...middle of the room, but then how… and where was…_ "

"Accipiter." Calvert's voice broke her murmuring. "Organize the Wards a ride back to headquarters, and get Vista to Panacea, she's waiting in the Wards medbay. Scendance, report to my office on your return."

" _Yessir…_ " Lisa muttered, oddly timidly.

"Yes Sir," I managed to grit out.

Distantly, I heard the Director telling Aegis what to do about the still restrained Alabaster. Velocity reported that there was no sign of Hookwolf in the surrounding neighborhood, either he turned around or was never coming in the first place. A few minutes later, a weary Miss Militia reported that Lung had finally disengaged with no Protectorate losses. Christ. I shook my head down at the two dead Nazis below me once more. What a shitty night. Alabaster wasn't the prize we were hoping for, but Othala and Victor's deaths were dangerous. Unpredictable. If this didn't prompt Lung to make a move beyond his usual ragedragon schtick, I wasn't sure what would.


End file.
